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Comment by drivenextfunc | Hacker News Reader

If you look at the code, you'll be (unpleasantly) surprised, I think. The author does not seem to have known what Y combinator is.

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If it helps, you will find the Y-combinator described (indeed, derived) in the first edition (https://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/2007-0...) of the author's programming languages book (https://www.plai.org/). (Page 228, if that helps, though the derivation begins on page 223.)

For added fun, the day he teaches it in class, he wears a t-shirt from Y-combinator the startup accelerator (and explains what its name means).

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, it remains unclear what is surprising or unpleasantly surprising about the code.

Shriram invoking Shriram ... (λ.x (x x) λ.x (x x)) forever \m/ :)

This reminds me of when John Nagle showed up in a thread about his algorithm on here.

In addition to the general sibling comments, I can personally attest that Shriram knows what the Y combinator is and has been teaching students about it for at least 25 years. My own lecture notes from one of his classes about the lambda calculus and the Y combinator were for a long time on the front page of google results for info about either!

I'm pretty sure Shriram Krishnamurthi understands the Y combinator...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shriram_Krishnamurthi

Don't see Y-combinator mentioned anywhere on that page.

But I do see that page mentioned on Y Combinator's page.

The joke can go on forever...

Somebody forgot to add a base case.

No need... Shriram is already based.

These are my favorite types of comments on hn

The HN guidelines suggest assuming the strongest interpretation of what someone said, so obviously the commenter was making a joke. :)

lmao Google him

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