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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

#231

Post by freeopinion »

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.

When my mother died, I was asked to think of one word to describe her. The best word that I could come up with was "teacher." One quick example: when my own child was 2 or 3, we spent some time with Grandma at Yellowstone National Park. Grandma walked with her grandchild through the park and explained geisers, plate techtonics, and many other topics of geology. I rolled my eyes and thought, "Really? He can barely speak and you are delivering a college lecture?" But then I remembered all the college lectures of my own youth. It's amazing how much even the youngest minds can absorb.

One of my biggest failings as a parent has been to assume that my children will learn things somehow without me teaching it to them. If anybody learned 1/3 of what my mother taught them in detail, they learned a lot.

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

#232

Post by lmm »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #103
Twisol wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A phrasing more to the point is that one expects the input to have some effect on the output . One usually obtains this by, colloquially speaking, performing actions on the input, since if you don't act upon the input in some way, you're going to get a constant result. Of course, you are correct in that some actions don't really do anything, but they're observationally indistinguishable from not acting on the input i…

Your comment seems confused in exactly the same way as coldtea's. How are you imagining turning input 20 into output 6 without acting on the input? If you don't act on the input, you have an identity function , not a constant function. Constant functions must alter their input whenever it doesn't match the constant output. Nobody ever complained that the problem with Procrustes was that he didn't do anything to the g…

Functions don't alter anything. 20 is still 20 even after you evaluate f(20) to be 6.

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

#233

Post by nicoburns »

fao_ wrote: post #124
azinman2 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it. It’d be nice if traditional school had a better balance where personal interests could be explored in a structured and formally accepted way.

> My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it. In my experience as an unschooled child who was in constant contact with the parents of other unschooled children, and other unschooled children, if a child isn't interested in something, that almost always changes over time. One example was where one kid did not wish to learn to read, u…

7 isn't really that late for reading. Lot's of well respected schoolin systems don't even attempt to teach reading until 7.

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

#234

Post by arunix »

ummonk wrote: post #2

>\lambda x.\, 6 was also surprisingly difficult for him to guess (though he did get it right eventually). I think he was just stuck on the idea of the function doing something arithmetical to the input, and was having trouble coming up with some sort of arithmetic procedure which would result in 6 no matter what you put in! It simply hadn’t occurred to him that the machine might not care about the input. (Interesting…

That section reminded me of how constants are implemented via functions in Perl e.g.

  use constant PI => 4 * atan2(1, 1);
under the hood becomes

  sub PI () { 4 * atan2 1, 1 }
http://perldoc.perl.org/constant.html#TECHNICAL-NOTES

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

#235

Post by icc97 »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #222
icc97 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

this is super expensive. How much do you need to earn to send your kids to schools like this.

In Belgium the Steiner school is free

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

#236

Post by icc97 »

inanutshellus wrote: post #218
intrasight wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know why?

(My guess) She spent her teens trying to get away from dad, why spend her working life there? :)

I'm not totally sure why. The life living on the boarder between France and Switzerland seems pretty idyllic (but at the end of university you don't think about that so much). I got the feeling it was just that going to work where your dad is isn't very appealing no matter where it is.

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

#237

Post by e12e »

joeframbach wrote: post #145
kazinator wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Wrong; X is composite if you can fit X apples into buckets and end up with the same number of apples in each bucket, with at least two apples in each bucket . "You gotta tell the children the truth. They don't need a whole lot of lies. Cause one of these days, baby, they'll be runni…

The original is correct, it says "apples" not "apple(s)".

Indeed it says "apples" and "buckets".

[Now, why op didn't use pidgins and pidgin holes, I'll never know... ;-) ]

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

#238

Post by rkangel »

HenryTheHorse wrote: post #229
steamer25 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gist of music theory: It sounds interesting when sounds with simple frequency ratios are played at the same time. E.g., playing a 440 Hz tone at the same time and 660 Hz tone has a 2:3 ratio. Some combinations of frequencies, when played before or after other combos can establish an expectation and then either fulfill it or negate it. E.g., if you take the ratio above and then play 440 + 587, it'll sound like it'…

Sorry, but you are way out of your league in trying to explain the "gist" of Music Theory in terms of frequencies. That's so not what Music Theory is about.

This comment would be valuable if it provided some support to the assertion that the original author was wrong.

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

#239

Post by majos »

ianamartin wrote: post #93
kazinator wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Wrong; X is composite if you can fit X apples into buckets and end up with the same number of apples in each bucket, with at least two apples in each bucket . "You gotta tell the children the truth. They don't need a whole lot of lies. Cause one of these days, baby, they'll be runni…

This is something I saw over and over again long before I had a serious interest in technology or science at all. It’s an attitude that’s rampant in liberal arts courses. There are “kiddie” versions of everything from History to to Music Theory to Grammar. It used to really frustrate me in undergrad how many things taught as almost moral absolutes were upended the following semester. I sort of get it that even in jun…

I agree with a caveat, Sometimes I see people take this sort of complexity (there are limits to what we know, science is fallible, there are different interpretations of pretty much everything) and run with it (YouTube conspiracy theories constitute "doing your own research", experts are no better than amateurs and therefore there's no reason to study anything hard). It's kind of a fine balance between going independent too little and too much.

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

#240

Post by jedberg »

pvg wrote: post #180
jedberg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it’s possible to do it when you’re not rich. It’s just a lot easier if you are. Like many things in life. :)

"It's better to be young, rich and healthy than old, sick and poor" is probably not the most novel insight worth writing down for the benefit of others.

I believe the insight that I was sharing is that it matters in this case, as many people would not realize that it is relevant here.
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