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Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming

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Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming

#51

Post by dsnuh »

jawns wrote: post #14

When my son was around five or six, I did a similar exercise to explain the difference between prime and composite numbers. I told him that a number X is composite if you can fit X apples into buckets and end up with the same number of apples in each bucket. I drew 6 apples and asked whether they could be divided into buckets with an equal number of apples in each. It was immediately obvious that they could. My son c…

> Who knew?!?

Your six year old came up with a new recursive prime generator over the course of a conversation introducing him to the concept of primes, and then submitted this as a paper to arXiv? Do you have a link to this paper on arXiv?

Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming

#52

Post by otp124 »

dsnuh wrote: post #51
jawns wrote: post #14

When my son was around five or six, I did a similar exercise to explain the difference between prime and composite numbers. I told him that a number X is composite if you can fit X apples into buckets and end up with the same number of apples in each bucket. I drew 6 apples and asked whether they could be divided into buckets with an equal number of apples in each. It was immediately obvious that they could. My son c…

> Who knew?!? Your six year old came up with a new recursive prime generator over the course of a conversation introducing him to the concept of primes, and then submitted this as a paper to arXiv? Do you have a link to this paper on arXiv?

> Do you have a link to this paper on arXiv?

This part was sarcasm.

Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming

#53

Post by make3 »

Jesus that shows you how uneven of a baggage children have when they start going to class.. this little dude has a computer science prof as his father, & is doing abstract logic problems at 6 yo, for fun no less!!

my cabinet maker father can't spell a sentence without making four different mistakes in his native language, and my social worker mother literally grimaces with pain anytime something resembling math is distantly mentioned

Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming

#54

Post by offbytwo »

darkkindness wrote: post #43
TuringTest wrote: post #38

I wish someone would explain all of Category Theory like this to me .

You might enjoy https://graphicallinearalgebra.net/ . The author uses Legos to describe algebras and diagrams to describe symmetric monoidal categories.

Thanks for this!

Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming

#55

Post by dsnuh »

otp124 wrote: post #52
dsnuh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who knew?!? Your six year old came up with a new recursive prime generator over the course of a conversation introducing him to the concept of primes, and then submitted this as a paper to arXiv? Do you have a link to this paper on arXiv?

> Do you have a link to this paper on arXiv? This part was sarcasm.

It was a strange context switch if it was sarcasm...

Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming

#56

Post by ballenf »

dsnuh wrote: post #55
otp124 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have a link to this paper on arXiv? This part was sarcasm.

It was a strange context switch if it was sarcasm...

It was self-deprecating humor aimed at acknowledging that all parents are pretty sure their children are the smartest humans to have ever walked the earth.

At least that was my reading and it gave me a chuckle.

Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming

#57

Post by teirce »

zwass wrote: post #45

Brent is one of the greatest teachers I've ever experienced. I used to take classes from him (and TA some others he taught) and was consistently blown away by his enthusiasm and capacity for sharing concepts. He has a great essay on pedagogy as well ( https://byorgey.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/abstraction-intuiti... ) If you're interested in learning some of the beautiful foundations of functional programming, I highly…

I'll second this; he is a fantastic teacher. I had the incredibly fortunate opportunity of learning from Brent in my undergrad at Hendrix, where he currently teaches.

There are other comments here that praise his patience with regard to teaching these topics to a child. I can say without a doubt he maintains the same patience with all of his students - not just his children. If you ever have the opportunity to learn from Brent (be from a course, blog, or talk), I would highly encourage it.

I'm glad to see a post of his making its rounds on HN.

Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming

#59

Post by theoh »

avip wrote: post #40
dyladan wrote: post #3

What is truly astounding about this is the patience to even attempt to explain free theorems to a 6 year old. Most parents would likely answer "math" and that would be the end of it. I don't (yet) have kids, but when I do I hope I have the wherewithal to recognize and take advantage of moments like these.

Note kid asked "dad what are you doing", not "what is functional programming". That's a simple call for attention, and it was equally suitable to close the book and play frisbee with him.

Boo!
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