And so, the Haskell mailing list is currently lit up with a discussion 
about terminology.

Specifically, somebody wrote in a blog that he was looking for something 
called "Appendable", but it turns out it's actually called "Monoid". 
Unsurprisingly, the author added "Haskell, *please* stop letting 
category theorists name things!"

But you see, some people apparently don't think this is a problem. (!!)

Words fail me... It's like somebody using a chainsaw to slice a loaf of 
bread, and seeing absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. What do you 
*say* to someone like that?! >_<

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:50:58 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> And so, the Haskell mailing list is currently lit up with a discussion
> about terminology.
> 
> Specifically, somebody wrote in a blog that he was looking for something
> called "Appendable", but it turns out it's actually called "Monoid".
> Unsurprisingly, the author added "Haskell, *please* stop letting
> category theorists name things!"
> 
> But you see, some people apparently don't think this is a problem. (!!)
> 
> Words fail me... It's like somebody using a chainsaw to slice a loaf of
> bread, and seeing absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. What do you
> *say* to someone like that?! >_<

"Have a chainsaw"?

Jim

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>> Words fail me... It's like somebody using a chainsaw to slice a loaf of
>> bread, and seeing absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. What do you
>> *say* to someone like that?! >_<
> 
> "Have a chainsaw"?

LOL! Yeah, I guess so...

The guys over there are now arguing that since you need to know physics 
to be a mechanical engineer, and you need to know chemistry to be a 
laboritory chemist, why shouldn't you need to know predicate calculus, 
abstract algebra and set theory to be a computer programmer?

Seriously, WTF??

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Invisible wrote:
> why shouldn't you need to know predicate calculus, 
> abstract algebra and set theory to be a computer programmer?
> 
> Seriously, WTF??

Honestly, that makes sense to me. Maybe not set theory as such, but the 
other two are basically what a computer program is made out of. I never 
understood why people thought calculus was worthwhile for computer 
programming.  (Domain knowledge, sure, but not programming.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

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On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:28:41 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>> Words fail me... It's like somebody using a chainsaw to slice a loaf
>>> of bread, and seeing absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. What do
>>> you *say* to someone like that?! >_<
>> 
>> "Have a chainsaw"?
> 
> LOL! Yeah, I guess so...
> 
> The guys over there are now arguing that since you need to know physics
> to be a mechanical engineer, and you need to know chemistry to be a
> laboritory chemist, why shouldn't you need to know predicate calculus,
> abstract algebra and set theory to be a computer programmer?
> 
> Seriously, WTF??

I would think set theory would be useful for dealing with certain data 
types.

The one that always got me was needing to know engineering physics to be 
a computer programmer.  Seriously, my CS degree program was heavy on 
modeling and simulation, but we had to take engineering physics (rather 
than a course on engineering physics tailored for CS majors, we just had 
to take the straight EP course).

But there's a bit of a difference between people who actually design 
airplanes needing to know EP and those who deal with simulations of 
airplanes.  The same depth of knowledge is needed because real or 
simulated, the math and physics are the same for the airfoil.  But for 
the person doing simulation, there's this thing called a library that we 
can link into to figure out the fancy math for us - so we don't need to 
memorise arcane formulae.  We just need to know the inputs to a function 
and the outputs from a function.

My EP professor disagreed.

Jim

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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> why shouldn't you need to know predicate calculus, abstract algebra 
>> and set theory to be a computer programmer?
>>
>> Seriously, WTF??
> 
> Honestly, that makes sense to me. Maybe not set theory as such, but the 
> other two are basically what a computer program is made out of. I never 
> understood why people thought calculus was worthwhile for computer 
> programming.  (Domain knowledge, sure, but not programming.)

I don't know. There are things you *must* know if you hope to write 
nontrivial programs and expect them to work properly. And there are 
other things which are useful to know, but generally not vital. I'd say 
all of the above fall definitely into the range of "it's great if you 
know it, but it's really not *required*".

Apparently I am entirely alone in this view.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:40:09 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Apparently I am entirely alone in this view.

No.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> simulated, the math and physics are the same for the airfoil.  But for 
> the person doing simulation, there's this thing called a library that we 
> can link into to figure out the fancy math for us - so we don't need to 
> memorise arcane formulae.  We just need to know the inputs to a function 
> and the outputs from a function.

I'm playing devil's advocate a bit, but ... what if there is no such 
library that would give you the values you need regarding lift, etc. 
What if part of what you need to do in the simulation is to create these 
calculations? Then you must certainly know these arcane formulae.

Granted, if something is needed enough, you won't be the first person to 
do it and a solution will be available...



-- 
~Mike

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I don't know. There are things you *must* know if you hope to write 
> nontrivial programs and expect them to work properly. And there are 
> other things which are useful to know, but generally not vital. I'd say 
> all of the above fall definitely into the range of "it's great if you 
> know it, but it's really not *required*".

You don't need to know algebra to know how to write a program? You don't 
need to know how "and" and "or" works to write a program?

You can't understand what a compiler does without knowing any abstract 
algebra. Heck, you can't even know the difference between a literal and an 
expression without knowing abstract algebra. You realize that "pass by 
value" is abstract algebra, right?

How do you know if your while loop terminates if you don't know how 
predicate calculus works?

Actually, I think the answer is more that you know these things, and you 
just don't know the terminology the academics use for much of the stuff.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

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Darren New wrote:
> understood why people thought calculus was worthwhile for computer 

By "calculus" I mean the calculus of integrals and derivatives, not 
something like "relational calculus".

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

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