Distinctly unimpressed by this post. The author seems to have an axe to grind with mathematicians as a class, which, as we would have been told in school, isn't 'big or clever'.
The whole of programming, nevermind types, perhaps the most mathematical part of modern programming, arises from mathematics. There's some good history here, but the early paragraphs in particular are a display of ignorance if not arrogance.
The author quotes Newton, the very chap who's said to have said he merely stood on the shoulders of giants (to 'see' such insight). Any programmer in the 21st century stands on the shoulders of mathematicians and computer scientists of the 20th,; who were in turn standing on the shoulders of the mathematicians of the 19th centuries.
>"Distinctly unimpressed by this post. The author seems to have an axe to grind with mathematicians as a class, which, as we would have been told in school, isn't 'big or clever'."
I thought it was intended to speak to people who might be intimidated or feel obtuse when they encounter really dense academic texts when trying to learn more about type systems as it relates to programming. As such I really appreciated it.
I didn't think the author was grinding any axes at all, quite the contrary.
I've no problem with that, it was the opening quotation, accompanying graphic, and following paragraph which read - to me, though I appreciate I may not have read it as it was intended - quite disrespectfully toward mathematicians.
Among whom I cannot count myself, for whatever it's worth.
I really don't think they have an axe to grind. What do they say that's incorrect? Their point is that much of what we see as type theory is inaccessible to the average programmer.
When we say that some field is inaccessible, we don't blame the reader trying to understand. At the same time we're not saying that the field is wrong either, but that communication could be improved.
The whole of programming, nevermind types, perhaps the most mathematical part of modern programming, arises from mathematics. There's some good history here, but the early paragraphs in particular are a display of ignorance if not arrogance.
The author quotes Newton, the very chap who's said to have said he merely stood on the shoulders of giants (to 'see' such insight). Any programmer in the 21st century stands on the shoulders of mathematicians and computer scientists of the 20th,; who were in turn standing on the shoulders of the mathematicians of the 19th centuries.