jfarmer

60 ms·

421.
by jfarmer 13y ago
This is easy to say and lots of folks say it. This article says it, too. However, I liked it primarily because it illustrated a practical way of achieving "low cognitive overhead", viz., creating narratives around a hypothetical
422.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Although the original post wasn't about it, here's a version of exact arithmetic in the field extension containing phi. I wrote in Ruby a long time ago: https://gist.github.com/jfarmer/82500f2b52c540df5fbc Yo
423.
by jfarmer 13y ago
100%! What I try to do is give folks the benefit of the doubt. Charity über Alles. Rather than read "iconic" and jump to the first conclusion I have, I might try in earnest to read and understand what someone wrote as they intend
424.
by jfarmer 13y ago
One of the things that sucks about being CEO is that even if you couch your thoughts in a million conditionals, "I think", "What do you all think", etc. etc., folks will inevitable take some or all of what you said as Th
425.
by jfarmer 13y ago
I believe the reason he is advocating for formal documents is that it's a more effective way to disseminate and reinforce culture, standards, and vision once a company gets larger than a certain size. There are a few nice features of w
426.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Also, your friend should read Mindstorms: http://www.amazon.com/Mindstorms-Children-Computers-Powerful... One of the major themes is the relationship children have with mathematics and ways teachers can change it.
427.
by jfarmer 13y ago
I co-founded Dev Bootcamp and while I was still there one of my not-so-secret missions was to make mathematics less alienating. I only say that because it was incredibly difficult , even in an environment where I had complete autonomy and
428.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Hah, yes! I hated math in high school but wound up graduating with a BS in mathematics from the University of Chicago. It wasn't until I took my first math course at Chicago using Michael Spivak's Calculus that I thought, "
429.
by jfarmer 13y ago
This works similarly in Ruby: a,_ = two_values() _,b = two_values()
430.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Speaking as one of the co-founders of Dev Bootcamp, they take a very different curricular and pedagogical approach than this course. The emphasis is 100% on fundamentals and Rails is used only as a means to that end. Curricularly, Rails i
431.
by jfarmer 13y ago
You know how it works, Thomas! People translate comments into the version that best suits their lives. :P
432.
by jfarmer 13y ago
"Like map and filter," I mean, not "Like map and reduce."
433.
by jfarmer 13y ago
How can they do "so much more" when both map and filter can be implemented in terms of reduce, but the opposite is not true? I can agree with you in terms of readability, even as a mathematician. For example, the list comprehensi
434.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Ok.
435.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Yeah, it's the second law. One of the first marketing books I read that convinced me marketing wasn't all puffery.
436.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Alternatively, if you can't be first in a category then invent a new category in which you are first. Who was the first human in space? Who was the second? Who was the first human to orbit the Earth? Who was the second? Who was the f
437.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Part of Bret's theory of learning (which I agree with) is that when "illustrating" or "explaining" an idea it is to important use multiple simultaneous representations, not solely symbolic and not solely visual. Th
438.
by jfarmer 13y ago
I'm not really interested in debating the reaction of an imagined Haskell programmer. I was just restating what the grandparent's analogy meant. Your question is fine, but not what he meant by the analogy.
439.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Go watch these three talks of his: Inventing on Principle, Dynamic Drawings, and this keynote on YouTube ( http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-QJytzcd7Wo&desktop_uri=%2Fwatc... ) Next, read the following essays of his: Explorab
440.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Although Reddit is often seen as the land of trolls, there are many subreddits where the level of conversation is orders of magnitude better than what happens on HN. Reddit is not monolithic in the same way HN is. This means you'll se
441.
by jfarmer 13y ago
I think the title of Bret's presentation was meant to be ironic. I think he meant something like this. If you want to see the future of computing just look at all the things in computing's past that we've "forgotten&quo
442.
by jfarmer 13y ago
A Java programmer unfamiliar with Haskell looks at a Haskell program and shouts, "I can't make even the slightest bit of sense out of this!" A Haskell programmer unfamiliar with APL looks at an APL program and...
443.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Ah, well, that's part of it what David is talking about, too. I don't like it, either, and think upvoting/downvoting is not good for surfacing, implementing, and sustaining community norms. BTW, Reddit has (largely) solved t
444.
by jfarmer 13y ago
My personal website is powered by Padrino ( http://20bits.com ), having hosted it on Wordpress for the 6 years prior. I liked Padrino but the codebase was kind of a mess. I could tell that overall it was very immature. What prog
445.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Nobody is trying to silence you. You're being uncharitable and people are pointing it out. One of David's points is that he doesn't like political discussions on HN because people hear what they want to hear and the discuss
446.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Er, well, I was using the function as an example of something which is f∈O(n^2) but not f∈Θ(n^2) under the assumption that when the OP reads the symbols "f∈O(n^2)" he's really thinking something more like f∈Θ(n^2).
447.
by jfarmer 13y ago
Like I said, "Sometimes they can prematurely bucket ideas into relevant/not-relevant, but usually not." I wrote that hoping to preempt your exact response. Alas! ;) Even if I grant your premise (which I don't), just bec
448.
by jfarmer 13y ago
I'll translate. Thomas is restating your argument thus: if David "cared about privacy on the internet" then he'd be eager to have the conversation here. Since he actively objects to having the conversation here, he must
449.
by jfarmer 13y ago
No, not really. One thing that makes an expert an expert is their ability to filter signal from noise. Sometimes they can prematurely bucket ideas into relevant/not-relevant, but usually not. Have you ever seen a novice programmer tr
450.
by jfarmer 13y ago
No, he's almost certainly not. Keep in mind, I know nothing about PL. I'm solely relying on my background as a mathematician to think of the most reasonable interpretation for what he's saying. He's saying something lik

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