Maybe we should let kids be kids and do kids stuff instead?
Kill the Heritic!
Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
91–100 of 161 posts
Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
#92"He gasped in astonishment at the idea of putting function machines into function machines" "He gasped in astonishment as I carefully explained the results of the double-slit experiment." Surely more like that this describes a 6yo kid being excited about something their parent is excited about and a product of implicit empathy, than any significant insight? I hate to lose reputation with downvotes for sounding negati…
"Surely more like that this describes a 6yo kid being excited about something their parent is excited about and a product of implicit empathy, than any significant insight?" Also possible is that what the kid actually understands and what the parent thinks they are understanding are two different things. The kid is quite likely still wrong in some critical way. But that is where we all start with new things. I've got…
Education is a series of increasingly smaller lies
Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
#93The most key point of this is right at the start: "I decided to just answer straightforwardly" That can make all the difference in your interactions with your child and how they learn about this world. Too many problems are caused by parents not being honest with their kids. Be straightforward, no matter how awkward the explanations may be. Avoid patronizing simplifications and saying things like "you'll understand w…
I remember, when I was a kid, that I had a toy piano where the notes C, D, E, etc. were labeled 1, 2, 3, etc. Later, I tried to get a computer to play a simple melody and assumed that 1=A, 2=B, etc. The result sounded wrong, and eventually by trial and error I figured out that if I put C# in place of C, then everything sounded good. I asked my father why, and he gave me a version of "you'll understand when you're old…
You may have asked him at the worst possible time for him personally. Whyever he didn't explain it at the time, I'm sure it's nothing to do with his love for you.
Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
#94"He gasped in astonishment at the idea of putting function machines into function machines" "He gasped in astonishment as I carefully explained the results of the double-slit experiment." Surely more like that this describes a 6yo kid being excited about something their parent is excited about and a product of implicit empathy, than any significant insight? I hate to lose reputation with downvotes for sounding negati…
>I hate to lose reputation with downvotes for sounding negative
This kind of comment is discussed in the second from the last paragraph here:
Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sure hope the haircut function mutates it's input, and doesn't return a clone whose hair is cut.
Reminds me of a YouTube video which said every time someone gets beamed in Star Trek they are killed and someone else is created with their body and mind somehow. If that were possible, why wouldn’t they just store backups and “restore” from backup when someone died?
A type of restoring from backup, well the short-term pattern buffer memory, has been a feature of several "transporter" episodes I think?
Like "no, we lost them; maybe they're 'in' the pattern buffers".
Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
#96"He gasped in astonishment at the idea of putting function machines into function machines" "He gasped in astonishment as I carefully explained the results of the double-slit experiment." Surely more like that this describes a 6yo kid being excited about something their parent is excited about and a product of implicit empathy, than any significant insight? I hate to lose reputation with downvotes for sounding negati…
I mean, 6 year olds get excited about all sorts of learning because their proper teachers are enthusiastic. But that enthusiasm helps them enjoy learning real things. And the concepts in the blog post aren't much more complicated than the other fundamentals children learn at that age. So like learning addition and reading, it's probably both the excitement of learning and the mirroring of their teacher.
Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sure hope the haircut function mutates it's input, and doesn't return a clone whose hair is cut.
Reminds me of a YouTube video which said every time someone gets beamed in Star Trek they are killed and someone else is created with their body and mind somehow. If that were possible, why wouldn’t they just store backups and “restore” from backup when someone died?
> a YouTube video
CGP Grey: The Trouble with Transporters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI
Steve Shives: Is Star Trek's Transporter Actually a Murder Machine? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-8zEkIaB0c
> why wouldn’t they just
https://allthetropes.fandom.com/wiki/Story-Breaker_Power
For purpose of storytelling, these powerful side effects of transporters need to be restricted. Hence, as an in-universe explanation, a pattern buffer
∙ is a physical phenomenon that cannot be (fully) expressed as information
∙ deteriorates over time, so needs to be rematerialised soon.
For the exception, see https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Relics_(episode)
Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
#98"He gasped in astonishment at the idea of putting function machines into function machines" "He gasped in astonishment as I carefully explained the results of the double-slit experiment." Surely more like that this describes a 6yo kid being excited about something their parent is excited about and a product of implicit empathy, than any significant insight? I hate to lose reputation with downvotes for sounding negati…
"I hate to lose reputation with downvotes for sounding negative, but I find my credulity challenged with this story."
My opinion about downvotes is that they reflect way more on reputation of those who actually does the thing (unfortunately they stay anonymous). Well HN rates you using down/up votes but personally since I do not agree with this whole anonymous anti-feature I do not really care.
Alternatively (lets add some conspiracy to spice it up) they might be doing hidden user profiling on whole range of social patterns and sending data to interested parties.
Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
#99"He gasped in astonishment at the idea of putting function machines into function machines" "He gasped in astonishment as I carefully explained the results of the double-slit experiment." Surely more like that this describes a 6yo kid being excited about something their parent is excited about and a product of implicit empathy, than any significant insight? I hate to lose reputation with downvotes for sounding negati…
I'm not going to downvote you but this is pretty joyless Just because the writing is not up to your standards doesn't mean the kid wasn't astonished when they realized you could put a function in a function. Kids love meta stuff (there's a book my niece & nephew were talking about and they were like "it's so weird!!" -- it was meta) Also it's not that hard of a concept. Give kids some credit.
> Kids love meta stuff
Agreed!
> doesn't mean the kid wasn't astonished when they realized you could put a function in a function
This is where my credulity was stretched. It's interesting and exciting when you first learn about it only if it breaks a rule you've long had in your mind and enables you to do more interesting things.
A 6-year-old child hadn't spent years assuming you can't put a function in a function, and they'd have not the slightest idea what you could now do with it.
Generally, very small children have very flexible ideas about the structure and rules of the physical world, so showing them "math tricks" often earns you a, "Duh, of course you can do that!" reaction when you instead expect astonishment. The exception is when they've been doing painful work the slow way and you've given them a shortcut.
Re: Conversations with a six-year-old on functional programming (2018)
#100"He gasped in astonishment at the idea of putting function machines into function machines" "He gasped in astonishment as I carefully explained the results of the double-slit experiment." Surely more like that this describes a 6yo kid being excited about something their parent is excited about and a product of implicit empathy, than any significant insight? I hate to lose reputation with downvotes for sounding negati…
I'm not going to downvote you but this is pretty joyless Just because the writing is not up to your standards doesn't mean the kid wasn't astonished when they realized you could put a function in a function. Kids love meta stuff (there's a book my niece & nephew were talking about and they were like "it's so weird!!" -- it was meta) Also it's not that hard of a concept. Give kids some credit.
Do you recall the name of the book?