81–90 of 319 posts
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…
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A function with a linear type uses it's parameters exactly once. The concept of "linear type" doesn't relate to a the concept of "linear function" except in an abstract mathematical way.
Well, a linear function is a function where you can only use the parameter once when expressed in its Taylor expansion. E.g. these are not linear: x^2=x*x (used twice), exp(x)=1+x+... (used infinite times). It’s a very symbolic way of thinking about it though, and not what you usually consider an important property of linearity.
But, your statement is true for all real-valued linear functions AFAIK.
> once the guesser thinks they know what the function does, the players switch roles and the person who came up with function specifies some inputs in order to test whether the guesser is able to produce the correct outputs.
In Zendo when the guesser offers the wrong rule, the 'master' must tell them an (input,output) pair where the guess disagrees with the rule the master had in mind. Then play continues.
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Lisp is perfectly suited for this task due to the minimal and familiar syntax to non-programmers. Math should be taught in prefix notation if u ask me.
Familiar? Seriously?!? That syntax is not familiar to non-programmers. > Math should be taught in prefix notation if u ask me. Perhaps it should, but it's not. Or was this whole post sarcasm, and it was done so well that I missed it?
EDIT: After some googling, TIL humblebragging.
Functions? Algebra? How is comprehending any of that, possible without the sort of abstract/counterfactual thinking that develops around age 12?
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.
Functions? Algebra? How is comprehending any of that, possible without the sort of abstract/counterfactual thinking that develops around age 12?
Functions? Algebra? How is comprehending any of that, possible without the sort of abstract/counterfactual thinking that develops around age 12?
...who told you that lie? An educational psychologist? More like "at age 12 even the most incompetent teacher can teach things involving abstract/counterfactual thinking to even the least intelligent child"... the bad ol' "lowest common denominator thinking" and the other horrors of our standardized educational systems :| Unfortunately it's not economically feasible to lecture to children in a classroom unless you ca…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget%27s_theory_of_cognitive...
Fine, I was off by one year.
I had a somewhat similar encounter with a 4 year old (!), who blew me away with his ability to solve arithmetic puzzles: http://heinrichhartmann.com/blog/2016/06/12/Box-Counting-Ari... It's a great joy to work with such gifted young minds.
Perhaps you know this and used "gifted" in its more euphemistic sense. In any event, I mention this not to correct you but to address the parental anxiety engendered by examples such as you gave.
[1] Depending on the activity and age of onset, they can be so strongly correlated that attentive educational professionals would recommend diagnostic tests to identify any condition (often some category of autism) and permit early intervention to minimize the negative developmental aspects.