4 ms·

That's really, really funny. Engineering isn't math either, but you can't do it right without math.

djur 13y ago
I know some people really want programming to just be an application of the lambda calculus. It's a model that really appeals to people who prefer a top-down, deductive model to their work. It's similar to the appeal that draws people to Austrian economics. And yet that is not the original model for thinking about software, nor the only valid one. Haskellers who rely solely on deductive arguments in favor of their method are going to be stuck forever wondering why so few people are using their clearly superior tool.
- teacup50 13y ago
  Less accurate "models" for "thinking about software" are less accurate, and whether they were thought of first or last has no bearing on that. The fact that you're using "earliest date of discovery" as supporting evidence demonstrates that you're not approaching the question as an objective observer. This isn't a popularity contest, though if you were measuring popularity based on positive impact, that of Haskell has been substantial. The only advantage to leveraging simpler and less accurate models is that they're easier for the people using them to understand at a micro scale -- at the cost of systemic accuracy and verifiability. In being less accurate, they create systems that are more difficult to understand, more difficult to abstract and compose, more difficult to optimize, and more difficult to measure. There's something destructive and anti-intellectual about trying to convince the world that deductive reasoning is just a matter of opinion.
  - djur 13y ago
    > The fact that you're using "earliest date of discovery" as supporting evidence It was a fun discussion while it lasted, but conjuring words out of thin air and putting them in my mouth is where it ends. Thanks.
    - teacup50 13y ago
      "And yet that is not the original model for thinking about software ..."

djur 13y ago

I know some people really want programming to just be an application of the lambda calculus. It's a model that really appeals to people who prefer a top-down, deductive model to their work. It's similar to the appeal that draws people to Austrian economics. And yet that is not the original model for thinking about software, nor the only valid one. Haskellers who rely solely on deductive arguments in favor of their method are going to be stuck forever wondering why so few people are using their clearly superior tool.

teacup50 13y ago
Less accurate "models" for "thinking about software" are less accurate, and whether they were thought of first or last has no bearing on that. The fact that you're using "earliest date of discovery" as supporting evidence demonstrates that you're not approaching the question as an objective observer. This isn't a popularity contest, though if you were measuring popularity based on positive impact, that of Haskell has been substantial. The only advantage to leveraging simpler and less accurate models is that they're easier for the people using them to understand at a micro scale -- at the cost of systemic accuracy and verifiability. In being less accurate, they create systems that are more difficult to understand, more difficult to abstract and compose, more difficult to optimize, and more difficult to measure. There's something destructive and anti-intellectual about trying to convince the world that deductive reasoning is just a matter of opinion.
- djur 13y ago
  > The fact that you're using "earliest date of discovery" as supporting evidence It was a fun discussion while it lasted, but conjuring words out of thin air and putting them in my mouth is where it ends. Thanks.
  - teacup50 13y ago
    "And yet that is not the original model for thinking about software ..."