> Makes me cringe to hear someone say
Do you have an inkling of who the 'someone' is in this case?
Let me help you, in case you don't:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Armstrong_%28programming%29
Do you have an inkling of who the 'someone' is in this case?
Let me help you, in case you don't:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Armstrong_%28programming%29
But you are also making statements full of adjectives and subjective descriptions such "makes me cringe" and "probably doing it wrong". That is quite a bit of flair for someone expecting logical and nice refutation of their own statements.
If you jump in the middle of the discussion, throwing around "you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong" at everyone then don't be surprised you get replies that are equally accusatory and harsh.
BTW I still don't see what is really so cringe-worthy in calling it an operator. It is just syntactic sugar. Call it green tomatoes if you want. Joe calls it an operator. I understand what Joe means. It is like yelling at someone talking about function default arguments and saying "ha! bit it is all assembler underneath, all this is wrong, it is just registers and pointers!".
This is incorrect. An appeal to an authority is a valid argument. The fallacy is an appeal to a false authority.
When you make a statement like "it makes me cringe", you are making an appeal to your own authority. Cringe-worthiness has nothing to do with reasoning or logic: it's only relevant if your opinion matters, and your opinion only matters if you're (1) the audience of the argument or (2) an authority. If you do not claim to be an authority, you are dismissing your own argument: you acknowledge its own fallaciousness.
This is always the case, though. If I say, "Fish need water, fish are good, so we should provide water," you have to independently verify my claims yourself or choose to accept the assertion.
No claim is exempt from this.
> I think many eod consider that a fallacy.
Sorry, I don't know what an "eod" is.
Unless you mean "end of day", in which case you're making an argument from popularity which, I'm sure you know, is a fallacious argument because popularity isn't a valid authority for determining whether or not something is a fallacy.
Regardless of whether the statement was an appeal to authority, regardless of whether Joe Armstrong or arianvanp are "true authorities" or if that's even objectively determinable, regardless of whether we consider inductive arguments as persuasive... regardless of all that.. we have brains. You can see what Joe Armstrong wrote. You can pick up Erlang and Elixir and use them yourself. You can see what arianvanp wrote. Some of us (excepting jacquesm, of course) have the capacity to use our own brains to consider the validity of the arguments at hand without having to resort to the lazy inductive argument that Joe Armstrong is smart about Erlang and therefore is probably right.
If you have a brain, use it instead of checking it in at the door.
That's why I wrote the comment. arianvanp brought them up, was pedantic, and also wrong about their usage.
P(author_doing_fp_wrong) < P(author_doing_fp_wrong | author_invented_erlang)
See masklinn's response for how to avoid stupid responses like this one. Or kvb's. Or even rtdsc's.
Because when you make a bunch of rude and unfounded accusations against not 'an' authority in the field but 'the' authority in the field you come across as not having done your homework.
It would be like telling PG what hackernews is supposed to be (I think we've had that one) or to tell Abelson why he doesn't understand the basics about lisp or scheme.
At some point appeals to authority are perfectly ok, not every dumb point made in an insulting and rude way needs to be refuted by textbook rules.
And really, not being aware who the players are and attempting to play the game is a-ok with me, just make sure that you have your t's crossed and your i's dotted when you do and nobody will call you out for making a fool of yourself.
And yes, it does matter whether it is Joe Armstrong or not, and how matters regardless of who it is.
I had a similar thought when reading the article, unaware to who wrote it... I wondered how currying and the like factored into the language, and thought that comparing |> to unix pipes was a big simplification. And whilst this simplification might be intentional for the article's purpose of giving an overview, it instead read - to me at least prior to realising who the author was - like the author was not fully informed on its use in other FP languages.
Sorry to see mr. Armstrong does not meet your requirements, would you like to take the matter up with mr. McCarthy instead?
> And this particular thread seems to be more grounded in discussing FP concepts than Erlang.
So? That makes it ok to speak in a disparaging manner about someone who did more for reliability of complex FP systems than anybody else that I'm currently aware of? And to fail to even do the author the courtesy of checking his/her credentials before firing off an ill thought out rant?
Really, not recognizing your elders and betters, -5 points, not knowing who they are, -50 points and being dead wrong on top of all that -500. The article is interesting for one reason only, it's Joe Armstrong writing about a new entrant on the VM that he designed and for those that are interested in such stuff his opinion carries a lot of weight. To dismiss his writings as the drivel of just another anonymous 'someone' who couldn't be bothered to do his homework about FP is ridiculous.
Anyway, I'm done with this thread.
I'm glad you've decided to follow your own advice and stop digging.
Ignoring your original reply to arianvanp, you'll see that interesting discussion has arisen in response to their original bold statement. This is why I read HN.
You have entered this thread, seemingly to show off your superior knowledge of PL creators, without actually contributing to the discussion. My attempt to diffuse things clearly had the opposite effect (FWIW, I was trying to point out that the words used in the article could lead to the interesting discussion that has happened, and certainly wasn't defending an attack on Joe Armstrong - an attack that you have read into but I don't feel is there).
Instead, what has been achieved?
To go meta for a moment, this is the problem with with HN that gets discussed from time to time (and I am well aware that I'm replying to a highly active user). Why do people feel the need to be so combative, just to win internet points (something someone is down 555 of by your count)? Perhaps after having pointed out who the author was, you could have explained why that matters. Maybe we aren't all as clever as you are.
Yes, arianvanp's original post was also phrased in a somewhat combative way, but at least it sparked interesting discussion. This subthread is the antithesis of that.
But why? In the same situation but talking to a non-expert, do you magically come across as having done your homework?
What's wrong with telling Abelson he doesn't understand the basics about lisp? Are these people infallible? Does your hero-worship allow for all-knowing experts to sometimes forget shit? Does senility factor into the equation, or do we drop to our knees at every utterance until they die?