Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by nickpeterson » Tue, May 08, 2018, 11:44 AM UTC

hycaria wrote: post #185

ams6110 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an immense amount of effort to do it consistently. And it gets harder with each kid, at least for me. One of the things you figure out is that some kids aren't interested. And if your kid isn't interested in thinking about prime numbers, you're going to be hard pressed to change that. Conversely they will have interests that you don't share, and it's going to be harder for you to participate meaningfully in that…

>And it gets harder with each kid, at least for me. That is the most depressing thing I've read in a good while.

Yeah, but I find it's true. I think that's why the first born tends to be, at least historically, the most important child. Because parents spend the most focused attention on them.

If it feels better though, as the youngest of three children, I find I was allowed to wander a bit more, and that has actually proved useful.

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

#202

Post by nickpeterson » Tue, May 08, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #130

insensible wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dad of 8 here. It makes life so sweet when we acknowledge the child's capacities. Notice it didn't take that much patience...it's almost just a matter of creatively overcoming a language barrier.

And, kids are fascinating conversationalists

My wife recently put up a small message board in our kitchen, where you can press letters into fabric to say what you want. My daughter (5 years old), suggested, "Candy inside your heart." I find the sentiment very sweet. We have not broached free monads yet.

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

#203

Post by nickpeterson » Tue, May 08, 2018, 11:49 AM UTC

thenobsta wrote: post #16

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.

Related, "Math from Three to Seven" by Alexander Zvonkin[1] is an excellent book on discussing math with young kids. [1] https://bookstore.ams.org/mcl-5/

https://www.amazon.com/My-Little-Big-Math-Book/dp/9198282603

I have not read this, but it's from the same person who helped create "anchor modeling" and I find that quite interesting.

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

#204

Post by skate22 » Tue, May 08, 2018, 11:52 AM UTC

I hope my kids want to learn and are curious about how things work like the OP's kid!

I dont want to be one of those parents that pushes their kid to the point that they dont enjoy learning or suffer socially.

Asking for a future me: how do you give your kid the best chance / environment to develop socially, but still enjoy learning & embracing the nerdier things?

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

#205

Post by icc97 » Tue, May 08, 2018, 11:54 AM UTC

> Or maybe there is a function machine where you put other function machines in and get function machines out!

Made me think of higher order functions as self-replicating machines [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine

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

#206

Post by nothis » Tue, May 08, 2018, 11:56 AM UTC

bonesss wrote: post #174

danbruc wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of those functions is to consume nothing and returns their (the programmer's) current age. This is - or at least might be - ambiguous. Current age as of implementation time or current age as of function invocation time? And while a result in whole years is a pretty natural and obvious choice for the age of a person in absence of an explicit requirement, it is certainly not the only sensible choice.

I'd argue it's not ambiguous: current age would have to be a function of invocation time, while "age at time of writing the function" would be a constant. Expressing "age" in whole years is acceptable in English, but using a decimal would be highly defensible. That's an issue of grading though.

Yea, that would have stumped me, expecting a trick/trap. What if my birthday is tomorrow? By the time my teacher checks it, it's wrong. "Your birth year" would have prevented that.

This is a problem I have with certain parts of computer science and math education. Everything is encouraged to be exact, then, suddenly, variable names are used inconsistently, niche cases are ignored arbitrarily and explained with essentially referring to "common sense".

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

#207

Post by icc97 » Tue, May 08, 2018, 12:05 PM UTC

skate22 wrote: post #204

I hope my kids want to learn and are curious about how things work like the OP's kid! I dont want to be one of those parents that pushes their kid to the point that they dont enjoy learning or suffer socially. Asking for a future me: how do you give your kid the best chance / environment to develop socially, but still enjoy learning & embracing the nerdier things?

I sent mine to a Steiner / Waldorf school on the hope that this is more of a social / confidence building environment. Then I surrepticiously feed her inner geek at every opportunity I can find. My personal current favourite is Wild Kratts [0] which teaches a amazing number of things.

Also we send my daughter to a violin school where they teach the suzuki method which has a fairly nerdy type of group of parents that go there.

So it means she's in a school that accepts most types of people whilst exposing her to nerdy things outside of school.

Curiously I found that a lot of the parents who send their kids to a Steiner / Waldorf school tend to be nerdier. The best example was a couple where the mother was had a Philosophy degree with a Physics PhD and the father travelled around the world as a street puppeteer.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Kratts

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

#208

Post by bonesss » Tue, May 08, 2018, 12:16 PM UTC

nothis wrote: post #206

bonesss wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue it's not ambiguous: current age would have to be a function of invocation time, while "age at time of writing the function" would be a constant. Expressing "age" in whole years is acceptable in English, but using a decimal would be highly defensible. That's an issue of grading though.

Yea, that would have stumped me, expecting a trick/trap. What if my birthday is tomorrow? By the time my teacher checks it, it's wrong. "Your birth year" would have prevented that. This is a problem I have with certain parts of computer science and math education. Everything is encouraged to be exact, then, suddenly, variable names are used inconsistently, niche cases are ignored arbitrarily and explained with essent…

Isn't that more or less what happens in the real world?

Software engineering is all about mapping dirty nuance to formal systems.

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

#209

Post by fiatjaf » Tue, May 08, 2018, 12:23 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #115

osteele wrote: post #100

Fun(ctional)! When my daughter was in 4th grade, I volunteer-taught a group of pull-out 4th–6th graders, so that she could have some peers to do math with. You might enjoy this set of math worksheets I created for them. https://www.scribd.com/document/15720543/Squarrows [EDIT: now also at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hfzm3Rvm4xpwp_xHUKBHxuIEgf... ] I was learning category theory at the time. I gave them some ele…

Is there a non-scribd (Google Drive) way to download the PDF?

Scribd is the worst thing on the internet. Please stop using it.

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

#210

Post by slx26 » Tue, May 08, 2018, 12:34 PM UTC

nickpeterson wrote: post #201

hycaria wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And it gets harder with each kid, at least for me. That is the most depressing thing I've read in a good while.

Yeah, but I find it's true. I think that's why the first born tends to be, at least historically, the most important child. Because parents spend the most focused attention on them. If it feels better though, as the youngest of three children, I find I was allowed to wander a bit more, and that has actually proved useful.

Well, when you are not the first, most of the time you end up learning a lot from your brothers/sisters. You are almost always the first for someone in the family.