579 karma · joined May 25, 2010
It is not the case that trolling English speakers was the primary motivation of Huet. My understanding is that the trolling was a side-benefit to a name he would have chosen regardless of whether it evinced the double entendre.
Obviously the very purpose of double entendres is to troll those who will get the second meaning. duh!
I remember reporting this bug years ago, and they said it was "by design, since JS programmers prefer to think of functions as covariant in their input". Well, I prefer to think of 2+2 as equalling 5.
why have you commented then? Mao Zedong had a dope saying about this, "No investigation, no right to speak!"
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One answer to your questions, btw, is that macros are useful and interesting regardless of what kind of type system you have. Haskell has something called Template Haskell, which is really quite bad for a number of reasons, but it is certainly possible to imagine a version of Haskell with a well-designed macro system. It just so happens that Racket has an exceptionally well-designed macro system, so the partnership of the two ideas is very plausible and scientifically interesting.
Macros and types are not in opposition. However, macros induce a notion of PHASE which is not usually accounted for in type systems, though it may be possible to account for this in a principled/type-theoretic way using ideas from modal logic and kripke semantics.
In math, you are dealing with many different kinds of object, not just numbers. In fact, one of the big realizations that led to modern mathematics is that not all mathematical objects can even be coded as numbers!
Your remark about "arrow" being more general than function is correct; but functions do not map only between sets of numbers, but between arbitrary sets, some of which contain elements that are not numbers, or even encodable as such.
It may be easy for experts to avoid getting confused by a literally false claim, which is clarified in the next paragraph. But your paper will often be read by people who are not experts in the paper's topic, so some will end up being confused by this.
It's stressful for me to read that kind of paper, since it causes a lot of cognitive dissonance as you read! Maybe it's not like that for everyone, but I prefer to read papers that don't use the approach you appear to suggest.
But sadly this paper is pulled out all the time by people who I suspect don't understand what is going on, to justify sleight of hand & dodgy reasoning which has little to do with the result in the paper. (Not claiming that's what's happening in the above comment! But I bristle a bit when I see this paper come up in amateur/Haskell circles.)
Huh? The comment I am criticizing in this thread is not directed at me, and has nothing to do with me. Seems a bit of a stretch to think that I caused it by my attitude, etc. It's a general characteristic of the HN community, not caused or sparked at all by my criticism or engagement.
Apologies---my intention was to signal that I wasn't interested in escalating the conversation or causing unpleasantness. I am completely happy to leave the last word to you.
Re "vandalism" and "being part of the community", thanks for your thoughts. I don't see myself at all as part of this community, but I do occasionally comment in it and on it. How is that possible? HN is a community of hackers and startup doers, and I once really was part of that (when I had the misfortune of being employed by a YC company); but a community is defined not just by collocation but by shared values & shared norms. Completely understandable if you'd rather I just buzzed off!
I understand the remainder of your comments, but I don't agree with them at all; to me, it is quite similar to the old bourgeois-liberal argument against antifa action, "you're just as bad as them!". In any case, it's completely understandable how & why you think that way, and I'm not interested in having a fight about it.
I will simply take the position that it is worse to arrogantly claim instant expertise than it is to (snarkily) criticize arrogance.
By the way, do you mean that it is better for a HN member to attack an outsider (who has not consented to be subjected to the usual HN nonsense), than it is for a HN member to attack another?
Anyway, thanks for the clarification---personally, I believe the dogmatic “We are hackers, therefore we can easily grasp any topic in 20 minutes which it has taken an expert a lifetime to learn!” nonsense which is so prevalent here (as I am sure you have observed) is worse, and deserves to be smacked down.
I'll end my participation in this convo here, though, since I don't think there's anything to be gained for anyone in continuing it.
Surely he knows about Popper (duh!).