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The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

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Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#441

Post by voidspark »

seadan83 wrote: post #405
godelski wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand you have strong opinions, I just don't understand why. In math are highly concerned with structures and abstraction. We have things called operators. They aren't just addition and multiplication. We also use those words to describe different operations. They have things like groups, rings, fields, and algebras. Yes, plural. The purpose of these things is to create logical frameworks. It matters not what…

> I understand you have strong opinions, I just don't understand why. As someone that is "on the other side of the fence", and getting flamed for it, maybe I can shed some light since I have the other perspective as well. IMO, The reason for not seeing eye to eye is (for example) akin to saying "word problems are math". (Thinking of a grade school word problems for common reference). Yes, they are readily mapped to m…

> word problems

That is a good analogy, except programming languages are formal languages, not natural languages.

> they are readily mapped to mathematical models

With code we are not talking about something that is mapped to mathematical models. Code is not modelled by mathematics, it is defined by mathematics (denotational semantics and operational semantics).

"Code is math" is true in a theoretical sense. Practically, coding doesn't always feel like what is commonly thought of as "doing mathematics", but it is essentially mathematical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics_(computer_science)

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#442

Post by GoblinSlayer »

godelski wrote: post #439
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How math helps with programming languages? What math says about zero based indexes? How do you prevent off by one errors? How do you prevent buffer overflows? It's ergonomics problems.

It is hard to answer because of exactly what ndriscoll said[0] > It's like trying to argue about the distinction between U(1), the complex numbers with magnitude 1, and the unit circle, and getting upset when the mathematicians say "those are 3 names for the same thing". Or saying that writing C is programming but writing in a functional language like Scala or Haskell (or Lean) is not. As ndriscoll suggests, it is ta…

Nonmathematical problems are difficult to answer when you try to find mathematical answers. It should be obvious, why it doesn't work.

Mentioning Scala is ironic, it's very light on math spik and to begin with was created to unify object oriented with functional programming, which is mathematically meaningless, because both are Turing complete and thus equivalent, tautological.

>So what I hear is "How programming languages helps with programming languages?"

Oh, right, in mathematics axiom is argument, but in reality it isn't. In programming you should assert what you assume, otherwise your assumptions can be wrong due to divergence from reality, but there no reality in mathematics, only fantasy, so you can't understand this with mathematics alone.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#443

Post by GoblinSlayer »

voidspark wrote: post #433
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discussion started about whether human needs math skills to write code. That's what I mean when I say programming isn't mathematics. Meaning of code is defined by human, how do you intend code to be defined by mathematics? The human first imagines mathematical formulas, then by some unknown process they become code? I don't think anybody does it like that. You start with requirements, intuitively guess architectu…

> The discussion started about whether human needs math skills to write code. Writing code IS a math skill. When writing code you are writing logic in a formal system. Logic is mathematics. You may be thinking that mathematics is just like doing arithmetic or solving equations. It is way deeper and broader than that. > I still think that's not code, but your favourite model of code Code is not just modelled through m…

That because mathematics doesn't need to match reality, so it's happy being ignorant about modelling? Anything you think is automatically true.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#444

Post by voidspark »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #442
godelski wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to answer because of exactly what ndriscoll said[0] > It's like trying to argue about the distinction between U(1), the complex numbers with magnitude 1, and the unit circle, and getting upset when the mathematicians say "those are 3 names for the same thing". Or saying that writing C is programming but writing in a functional language like Scala or Haskell (or Lean) is not. As ndriscoll suggests, it is ta…

Nonmathematical problems are difficult to answer when you try to find mathematical answers. It should be obvious, why it doesn't work. Mentioning Scala is ironic, it's very light on math spik and to begin with was created to unify object oriented with functional programming, which is mathematically meaningless, because both are Turing complete and thus equivalent, tautological. >So what I hear is "How programming lan…

> but there no reality in mathematics, only fantasy, so you can't understand this with mathematics alone

No. Code is an abstraction. It exists as a logical structure, grounded in mathematical logic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43888917

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#445

Post by voidspark »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #443
voidspark wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The discussion started about whether human needs math skills to write code. Writing code IS a math skill. When writing code you are writing logic in a formal system. Logic is mathematics. You may be thinking that mathematics is just like doing arithmetic or solving equations. It is way deeper and broader than that. > I still think that's not code, but your favourite model of code Code is not just modelled through m…

That because mathematics doesn't need to match reality, so it's happy being ignorant about modelling? Anything you think is automatically true.

You are missing the point.

Code is not modelled mathematically, it is defined mathematically.

It exists as an abstraction which is fully defined by operational semantics and denotational semantics, not modelled or approximated.

In the counter example of a quark, that exists in nature and is modelled by mathematics, but not defined by mathematics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics_(computer_science)

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#446

Post by GoblinSlayer »

godelski wrote: post #438
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wheeler: It from bit. Otherwise put, every it—every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself—derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom—at a very deep bottom, in most ins…

That is not in contention with what I said, now is it? Wheeler is arguing that if a tree falls in the forest, and there is nobody to hear it, that it still makes a sound because there are things that interact with the sound. But if the tree fell in a forest and there was nothing else in the universe then there is no sound because there is no observation. It helps to read the whole thing[0] and to understand the conte…

If nature is information theoretic, then physics is mathematics.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#447

Post by GoblinSlayer »

photonthug wrote: post #306
QuercusMax wrote: post #8

This totally makes sense to me. I've always been a very good / fast reader, which has been incredibly useful in my programming career. I had a good SAT math score (710) but got a perfect score (800) on the SAT verbal (in the late 90s). I remember when I first started working on my Master's project on wireless sensor networks, my advisor sat me down and said "I think I know a good project for you. I want you to print…

> I've always been a very good / fast reader, which has been incredibly useful in my programming career. I had a good SAT math score (710) but got a perfect score (800) on the SAT verbal (in the late 90s). This is me and also many of the CS students in my cohort, and AFAIK something that universities actively selected for, and students also self-selected around in an era of RTFM/MUDs/IRC before LLMs or youtube. The b…

Remember people whining about weak ecosystems? That's a lot of opportunity to build things from scratch instead of making another - for real this time - IRC clone with Electron.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#448

Post by CyberDildonics »

godelski wrote: post #333
CyberDildonics wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

forming relationships between objects This is vague and doesn't mean anything. People can't even agree what 'objects' are and people did a lot of programming before the term 'object' was invented. Programming is about is fundamentally about instructions and data. Yin and yang of two things that are completely different, even if people can occasionally mix them and conflate them.

Category theory is often jokingly called the study of dots and arrows. What's a dot? Anything. What's an arrow? A relationship. I'm surprised I hit a nerve with so many people. I'm quoting someone who's considered one of the greatest mathematicians. Obviously I don't know the backgrounds of people but it seems like programmers have strong opinions on what math is that disagrees with what mathematicians say they do. h…

Now it's not math it's 'category theory' and that's dots and arrows and dots are anything.

At what point does the abstract description just not offer any useful insight anymore?

I'm surprised I hit a nerve with so many people.

A lot of people had very good explanations for why you're pretty far off in trying to say two things are the same.

Programming is much more like building a machine than any sort of straight math. There is state, there is interactivity, there is performance, there is IO and there are real world implications to all of it.

Saying they are the same is like saying gardening is plumbing just because you sometimes use a hose.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#449

Post by thaumasiotes »

seadan83 wrote: post #398
thaumasiotes wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Math major here. You say that like you think it's a qualification? You're not making it look good. A common use of be is to express set membership rather than identity. For example, "two is an even number" or "tigers are cats". We may hope that one day you'll come to realize that set membership is not reflexive, and - more to the point - also not symmetric.

> A common use of be is to express set membership rather than identity Google for "logical "is a" vs logical "is"". Google AI answers this: > "is" typically represents an equality relation Rest is from the AI response: In logic, "is" typically represents an equality relation, while "is a" (or "is of the type") represents an inclusion relation. "Is" indicates that two things are the same or identical, while "is a" ind…

Try applying some thought. You asked a stupid question and you got a stupid answer. What conclusions do you think that supports?

What does "silk is cloth" mean?

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#450

Post by godelski »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #448
godelski wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Category theory is often jokingly called the study of dots and arrows. What's a dot? Anything. What's an arrow? A relationship. I'm surprised I hit a nerve with so many people. I'm quoting someone who's considered one of the greatest mathematicians. Obviously I don't know the backgrounds of people but it seems like programmers have strong opinions on what math is that disagrees with what mathematicians say they do. h…

Now it's not math it's 'category theory' and that's dots and arrows and dots are anything. At what point does the abstract description just not offer any useful insight anymore? I'm surprised I hit a nerve with so many people. A lot of people had very good explanations for why you're pretty far off in trying to say two things are the same. Programming is much more like building a machine than any sort of straight mat…

  > [No,] it's not math it's 'category theory'
That's a wild claim considering Category Theory is a branch of mathematics

  | Category theory is a general theory of mathematical structures and their relations.
  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_theory
It is necessary that you provide an alternative definition as to what "category theory" is, though I suspect it will make many category theorists and mathematicians upset.

  > A lot of people had
A lot of non-mathematicians disagreed with mathematicians. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43882197
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