51–60 of 119 posts
I already have problems reading arrow/inline functions... for example where a method is called with a function that returns a function... if there is one more (async) call in there my brain starts smoking.
I think the article tries to make it sound more mysterious and groundbreaking than it really is.
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Not quite. + isn’t the last thing done (which it would be in Polish notation). Instead it’s done during the / operation. Polish notation would be lisp (or the notion most people have for lisp, special forms and macros break it up a bit).
Lisp is polish notation for trees of variable arity. hence all the parens - you need some way to group them. So in some K flavoured LISP I think it would be ((/ +) (! 100))
(->> 100 range (reduce +))
(reduce + (range 100))I recently started using rust-analyzer with vscode. One common sight is this: thing .stuff() .other() .whatevs() Each of the calls returns a different type. Rust-analyzer displays the return type of each call to the right of it. I imagine something similar could reconcile the benefits of terseness with readability and discoverabilty. The blog post already has the prototype: + / ! 100 plus reduce range 100 Imagine the…
So what would be the benefit compared to just writing `plus reduce range 100`?
This is a category of cursed knowledge which causes psychic damage to the reader. When you go down certain rabbit holes you develop a fascination with obscure forms of programming and start to realize it has some powerful benefits of which you can never take advantage because it isn't widely adopted. To free yourself from this curse write ten regular for-loops in C and say a prayer to K&R while tighly holding your co…
{x#x{x,+/-2#x}/0 1} I'm sure if you used K for a year or so, that would be obvious and understandable at a single glance. But all I can think of is that I used to see that in my terminal session right after my modem got disconnected.
I think the same problem applies. If you don't remember the specific of a symbol it becomes difficult to understand what the symbol might be without context.
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Huh, I had no idea that function had variable arity. Thanks.
Funnily enough, that variable arity is mentioned in the article as a nuisance: > ... wincing slightly at the lambda notation you need to avoid running afoul of JavaScript’s variadic Math.max()...
list.reduce((x,y)=>Math.max(x,y))
list.reduce(Math.max)
Math.max(...list)
So he deliberately writes overly complex JavaScript code to show how the other language is more concise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funnily enough, that variable arity is mentioned in the article as a nuisance: > ... wincing slightly at the lambda notation you need to avoid running afoul of JavaScript’s variadic Math.max()...
It is a typical language-comparison strawman. He is writing list.reduce((x,y)=>Math.max(x,y)) To get the max number in a list. And he is "winching" because he can't write: list.reduce(Math.max) Because the variable arity of max does not play well with reduce. But because of the variable arity he can write: Math.max(...list) Which is even simpler. So he deliberately writes overly complex JavaScript code to show how th…
So worthwhile keeping in mind that the nice JS code falls apart.
I'm torn. Not about the conciseness of the language overall, but about using symbols vs. names. I do see how the symbols make things more concise, less clutter, and can even make it easier to grasp a piece of code if you are deeply familiar with them[1]. On the other hand, there might be a limit. I do know how it is to use the Haskell lens package only occasionally, and then having to lookup again what the operators…
> I'm torn. Not about the conciseness of the language overall, but about using symbols vs. names. I do see how the symbols make things more concise, less clutter, and can even make it easier to grasp a piece of code if you are deeply familiar with them[1]. I think the "if you are deeply familiar with them" is important. Using non-standard symbols makes comprehension more binary: either you've memorized them and under…