Hacker News Reader

Comment by codex | Hacker News Reader

"The truth is that Lisp is not the right language for any particular problem. Rather, Lisp encourages one to attack a new problem by implementing new languages tailored to that problem."

This is why I don't use LISP. It is the case that math is closely related to language, so those with an overdeveloped math functional unit in the brain also have an overdeveloped linguistical unit. This leads to treating every problem as a linguisic problem, because that is what their brain is best equipped to solve.

While this works for them, it doesn't for me--my brain attacks problems completely differently, and so language centric toolbox is not what I prefer to use.

I don't have a problem converting my solutions into any given language. In fact, I prefer to translate them into a representation closer to the machine for better performance.

View on HN

>> "so those with an overdeveloped math functional unit in the brain also have an overdeveloped linguistical unit. This leads to treating every problem as a linguisic problem, because that is what their brain is best equipped to solve."

Seriously, math envy much? Where is it that people formulate these absurd conjectures about mathematics and people who understand mathematics, because every time I hear one it sounds more like defensive attempts to disarm one's feelings of inadequacy by making another group seem inferior or "different" in some way. Furthermore, mathematical capacity and linguistic capacity have no strong links that I know of, so I'm going to need a citation before I swallow that claim, sir.

"The Math Gene" goes into some of the links between math and language--but that's not really central to my argument, which is that some people are not predisposed to attack problems linguistically. I only mention it to explain why there are so many linguistic connections to computer science.

I don't mean to sound defensive; and, indeed, I'm not sure I'm terribly bad at math (perfect scores on math achievements, AP Calculus BC, diff eq. modeling experience) or have terribly low verbal ability (perfect score on verbal SAT). But I do know that, of the tools I would use to attack a CS problem, linguistic is low on the list. And once I have a solution, my correctness proofs are not linguistic, either.

a) OP had nothing to do with linguistics or math; it was simply pointing out that Lisp's approach to being general purpose was interesting in that you could take basic rules and restructure them to fit your domain.

b) I have read "The Math Gene" and many claims made vis-a-vis maths and linguistics are dubious, at best.

c) There is no "linguistic" way to attack anything, unless what you're attacking is a linguistic problem.

Is your rationale that when given a problem "mathematically overdeveloped" - by the way, if you were wondering about your perceived defensiveness, saying someone is "overdeveloped" in something you claim to not have ample ability in is a dead giveaway - people will first parse it for nouns and gerunds? Because most people think about the problem and only consider your diction if it is relevant to the problem itself.

That is an interesting (as in "Huh, interesting!") claim. Do you recommend any reading on this cognition topic? (Concerning language and math.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com