Comments on: Don’t forget to fly http://www.drmaciver.com/2007/11/dont-forget-to-fly/ Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:56:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: olsner http://www.drmaciver.com/2007/11/dont-forget-to-fly/#comment-63 olsner Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:18:00 +0000 http://www.drmaciver.com/wordpress/?p=65#comment-63 Seems to me that most of the "FP is awesome!" posts from people in the FP community are *actually read* mostly by other people already in the community, rather than by a lot of outsiders. Simply because FP people go around reading a lot of FP blogs, while non-FP people don't usually do that ;-)<br/><br/>While many of these FP posts are written as if to convert people to FP, I think the actual effect is more of "Check this out! If someone could explain this über-cool FP feature to the masses, everyone would go FP!" Seems to me that most of the “FP is awesome!” posts from people in the FP community are *actually read* mostly by other people already in the community, rather than by a lot of outsiders. Simply because FP people go around reading a lot of FP blogs, while non-FP people don’t usually do that ;-)

While many of these FP posts are written as if to convert people to FP, I think the actual effect is more of “Check this out! If someone could explain this über-cool FP feature to the masses, everyone would go FP!”

]]> By: David R. MacIver http://www.drmaciver.com/2007/11/dont-forget-to-fly/#comment-62 David R. MacIver Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:44:00 +0000 http://www.drmaciver.com/wordpress/?p=65#comment-62 Curious. I had a paragraph addressing exactly that point, but took it out because I didn't think it was relevant. :-)<br/><br/>Short version: Yes, that's true. But the posts are uniformly among the least convincing pieces of writing I've seen. I sure as hell wouldn't have started functional programming if the motivation I got was "Look. For loops! Oooooh!". <br/><br/>(There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many - most of the people who actually know enough to write good FP advocacy pieces know enough to not do it in Java.)<br/><br/>More importantly, the people writing these posts <i>are</i> in the FP community. So why are they spending all their time thinking about FP in terms of how they could use it in Malbolge? Curious. I had a paragraph addressing exactly that point, but took it out because I didn’t think it was relevant. :-)

Short version: Yes, that’s true. But the posts are uniformly among the least convincing pieces of writing I’ve seen. I sure as hell wouldn’t have started functional programming if the motivation I got was “Look. For loops! Oooooh!”.

(There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many – most of the people who actually know enough to write good FP advocacy pieces know enough to not do it in Java.)

More importantly, the people writing these posts are in the FP community. So why are they spending all their time thinking about FP in terms of how they could use it in Malbolge?

]]> By: ephemient http://www.drmaciver.com/2007/11/dont-forget-to-fly/#comment-61 ephemient Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:33:00 +0000 http://www.drmaciver.com/wordpress/?p=65#comment-61 Flawed analoogy: both of those birds are already capable of flight. But the target audience for "FP is awesome!" posts is not the FP community, it is those who are outside of it. Flawed analoogy: both of those birds are already capable of flight. But the target audience for “FP is awesome!” posts is not the FP community, it is those who are outside of it.

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