4 ms·

Shamelessly off-topic, but I can tell the author is a legit pure mathematician: (1) Haskell is Functional (2) Haskell Insulates You (3) Haskell Performs Well

by gone35 12y ago

Shamelessly off-topic, but I can tell the author is a legit pure mathematician: (1) Haskell is Functional (2) Haskell Insulates You (3) Haskell Performs Well [...] (3) Haskell is Declarative Not being ironic, by the way. From experience, often I can tell pure vs applied mathematicians by how hilariously bad/absent-minded they can be at basic arithmetic/algebraic manipulations. Same for theoretical- vs systems-oriented CS people, I've found --almost as if being a horrible programmer somehow gives you academic hipster cred. (EDIT - To clarify: I mean CS academics in grad school, not CS professionals in industry. Also it's just a silly anecdote only marginally correlated with reality: no offense intended to anyone.)

moab 12y ago
Inheriting off-topicness, while that stereotype does apply to most mathematicians, a large number of the CS theory people I've worked/TA'd with were actually pretty good programmers, and a few had even taught multiple years of our intro systems course. Of course this is just one school, but I think computer science as a field is still young enough that someone can be an expert in one area and still be reasonably fluent in other areas. Don't think the last point is particularly true either: being a good programmer is valuable even for theoretical CS. Point in case, recently saw the work leading to a paper on SDD solvers: there was a ton of programming and exploration (albeit in Mathematica/Matlab) that led to the final paper. Also, people working on parallel stuff these days (even the theory guys) usually publish CILK/MPI along with the paper. It's great when you can do both :)
- gone35 12y ago
  Yes: That's definitely the way it should be! I agree 100% that CS is still young and cohesive enough for dedicated people to achieve both breadth and depth, which perhaps means "grand" single-person revolutionary breakthroughs can still be achieved: Karp made a similar point during one of the Turing centenary talks (*An Algorithmic View of the Universe [1,2]), positing that the field is not yet specialized enough to prevent an Alan Turing-like figure today to have a comprehensive view of the state-of-art of the discipline (!). [1] http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2322176.2322189 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2322176.2322189 [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6df3s3x3zo#t=56m25s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6df3s3x3zo#t=56m25s
StandardFuture 12y ago
It is technically impossible to be a good 'CS People' and simultaneously be a 'horrible programmer'. It seems that what you are referring to are people who know basic CS concepts and even know the basic features of a language or two but do not have a 'Hacker' mindset. This does not make them a 'horrible programmer' -- just as a hacker who comes up with 'tricks', without actually understanding that the things he 'created' were already discovered in some 70s CS paper, is not a 'horrible Computer Scientist'. It's not a sufficient method to describe a person's strengths and weaknesses.
- elliptic 12y ago
  So, basically, you think that there are exactly 0 CS professors who are horrible programmers?
  - StandardFuture 12y ago
    How can your comment completely disregard the entirety of my actual conclusion? >It's not a sufficient method to describe a person's strengths and weaknesses. So, there should be if your classifications are correct. You are assuming that 'CS Professor' is equatable to 'good CS People'. But, my classification may not be so rigid. EDIT: You also still have not defined what it means to be a 'Good Programmer' vs. a 'Horrible' one.
- gone35 12y ago
  Sorry I wasn't clear: by 'CS people' I meant to refer to CS academics in graduate school (professors, post-docs, grad students), not CS professionals in industry --admittedly a sign of insularity, I recognize. And what I meant is that, anecdotally, academics working on CS theory (eg theory of computation, computational learning theory) are more likely than not to unmistakeably be what I think everyone on HN would agree to call point-blank "horrible programmers": no use of version control, no tests, little concern for organization/modularity/maintainability, etc. And in part it makes sense since they don't have to hack nearly as much as systems-type CS academics --in many ways their work is closer to pure mathematics than engineering/applied math. That's all. In all just a silly anecdote, although with a kernel of truth. See for instance Scott Aaronson's joke comments about his programming abilities [1]: On the spectrum of computer science, I'm about as theoretical as you can get. One way to put it is that I got through CS grad school at Berkeley without really learning any programming language other than QBASIC (!). [1] http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=266 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=266
nostrademons 12y ago
He was a pure mathematician at the time this was written. Now he works for Google, IIRC on self-driving cars: http://www.knowthecosmos.com/destember/destember-experiment-inside-the-mind-of-google-x-engineer-dan-piponi/ http://www.knowthecosmos.com/destember/destember-experiment-... He also won an Oscar this year, his second total: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0685004/awards http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0685004/awards
- JoeAcchino 12y ago
  Nice to know, if an oscar-winning pure mathematician working on science-fiction projects found difficult to learn Haskell, I can save myself the trouble.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    If that's your goal. There are some people who do things because they are difficult, because whatever activity is most difficult is probably the most mind-expanding.
Bahamut 12y ago
I don't think you know enough pure mathematicians.
- gone35 12y ago
  You are probably right --I haven't been spending much time of late with people from my own department. :)

by gone35 12y ago

moab 12y ago

Inheriting off-topicness, while that stereotype does apply to most mathematicians, a large number of the CS theory people I've worked/TA'd with were actually pretty good programmers, and a few had even taught multiple years of our intro systems course. Of course this is just one school, but I think computer science as a field is still young enough that someone can be an expert in one area and still be reasonably fluent in other areas. Don't think the last point is particularly true either: being a good programmer is valuable even for theoretical CS. Point in case, recently saw the work leading to a paper on SDD solvers: there was a ton of programming and exploration (albeit in Mathematica/Matlab) that led to the final paper. Also, people working on parallel stuff these days (even the theory guys) usually publish CILK/MPI along with the paper. It's great when you can do both :)

gone35 12y ago
Yes: That's definitely the way it should be! I agree 100% that CS is still young and cohesive enough for dedicated people to achieve both breadth and depth, which perhaps means "grand" single-person revolutionary breakthroughs can still be achieved: Karp made a similar point during one of the Turing centenary talks (*An Algorithmic View of the Universe [1,2]), positing that the field is not yet specialized enough to prevent an Alan Turing-like figure today to have a comprehensive view of the state-of-art of the discipline (!). [1] http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2322176.2322189 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2322176.2322189 [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6df3s3x3zo#t=56m25s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6df3s3x3zo#t=56m25s

StandardFuture 12y ago

It is technically impossible to be a good 'CS People' and simultaneously be a 'horrible programmer'. It seems that what you are referring to are people who know basic CS concepts and even know the basic features of a language or two but do not have a 'Hacker' mindset. This does not make them a 'horrible programmer' -- just as a hacker who comes up with 'tricks', without actually understanding that the things he 'created' were already discovered in some 70s CS paper, is not a 'horrible Computer Scientist'. It's not a sufficient method to describe a person's strengths and weaknesses.

elliptic 12y ago
So, basically, you think that there are exactly 0 CS professors who are horrible programmers?
- StandardFuture 12y ago
  How can your comment completely disregard the entirety of my actual conclusion? >It's not a sufficient method to describe a person's strengths and weaknesses. So, there should be if your classifications are correct. You are assuming that 'CS Professor' is equatable to 'good CS People'. But, my classification may not be so rigid. EDIT: You also still have not defined what it means to be a 'Good Programmer' vs. a 'Horrible' one.
gone35 12y ago
Sorry I wasn't clear: by 'CS people' I meant to refer to CS academics in graduate school (professors, post-docs, grad students), not CS professionals in industry --admittedly a sign of insularity, I recognize. And what I meant is that, anecdotally, academics working on CS theory (eg theory of computation, computational learning theory) are more likely than not to unmistakeably be what I think everyone on HN would agree to call point-blank "horrible programmers": no use of version control, no tests, little concern for organization/modularity/maintainability, etc. And in part it makes sense since they don't have to hack nearly as much as systems-type CS academics --in many ways their work is closer to pure mathematics than engineering/applied math. That's all. In all just a silly anecdote, although with a kernel of truth. See for instance Scott Aaronson's joke comments about his programming abilities [1]: On the spectrum of computer science, I'm about as theoretical as you can get. One way to put it is that I got through CS grad school at Berkeley without really learning any programming language other than QBASIC (!). [1] http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=266 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=266

nostrademons 12y ago

He was a pure mathematician at the time this was written. Now he works for Google, IIRC on self-driving cars: http://www.knowthecosmos.com/destember/destember-experiment-inside-the-mind-of-google-x-engineer-dan-piponi/ http://www.knowthecosmos.com/destember/destember-experiment-... He also won an Oscar this year, his second total: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0685004/awards http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0685004/awards

JoeAcchino 12y ago
Nice to know, if an oscar-winning pure mathematician working on science-fiction projects found difficult to learn Haskell, I can save myself the trouble.
- nostrademons 12y ago
  If that's your goal. There are some people who do things because they are difficult, because whatever activity is most difficult is probably the most mind-expanding.

Bahamut 12y ago

I don't think you know enough pure mathematicians.

gone35 12y ago
You are probably right --I haven't been spending much time of late with people from my own department. :)