241–250 of 319 posts
> “A function is like a machine where you put something in one end and something comes out the other end. For example, maybe you put a number in, and the number that is one bigger comes out. So if you put in three, four comes out, or if you put in six, seven comes out.” Examples are such a useful tool to explain complex subjects and make them approachable.
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What about a definition of protocol that allows sending messages to yourself for recursion.
What about it? Why should it be treated differently?
I've failed as a parent. My oldest is 9 already, and we still haven't discussed functional programming. Well, maybe the 3 year old still has a chance.
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…
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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…
You did CS at Hendrix College? I did too ('11) and can't help mentioning it even though I have little to say... because hey, small school, tiny department, it's not often you run into another Hendrix CS alum, even virtually. And after years in "industry" I really appreciate the surprisingly good CS education there for a not well known school How's the dept doing these days? Is Ferrer still there?
It's still a small department - I think there were <10 people in my class - but has seen an uptick in growth the last few years. They've made some really great hires recently - obviously Brent, as well as Mark. Both are great teachers and Hendrix is lucky to have them.
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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 independ…
Side question: maintenece of functional programs is easier, because you don't need to think about state. Could it be used to create a functional programming language, easily understood by non-programmers or beginners , so they too could take a program and adapt it to their needs ? Does such language exist ?
Yes: Joy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(programming_language) (Shameless plug for my own implementation: http://joypy.osdn.io/ )
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.
One thing that makes this easier is being rich. What I mean by that is for example, when my kid is asking me questions or wants to "do it myself!", the fact that I have a flexible schedule helps immensely, and that flexible schedule is possible because I can turn down work that doesn't give me that flexibility. If I had a strict clock-in/clock-out job, and only had limited time to run errands, I'd have a lot less pat…