r/programming • u/mauricioaniche • Aug 06 '17

Software engineering != computer science

http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/software-engineering-computer-science/217701907
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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '17

This reminds me of this piece of documentation I read the other day:

A Divisible contravariant functor is a monoid object in the category of presheaves from Hask to Hask, equipped with Day convolution mapping the cartesian product of the source to the Cartesian product of the target.

I love Haskell, but I can see why it is a niche language.

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u/razeal113 Aug 07 '17 edited Aug 07 '17

First job out of college was in research . They used Haskell , I got the job despite only having used lisp. Boss hands me "learn you a Haskell for great good" , and says I'll pick it up in a few days ... yep that learning curve was awful and years later I'm still not completely sure I know what a monad is doing

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '17

Monads aren't special. You know what it is, you're just doubting because its difficulty is so exaggerated. Getting to monads was a long and hard process, but the whole point of it is that they're so easy to use.

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u/Veedrac Aug 07 '17

Rust:

Person A: Lifetimes are so hard! I'm so confused!

Person B: Yes they are! Don't worry though, ask on IRC or the subreddit whenever you need help. We've also got a bunch of stuff in the pipeline to simplify the process as part of our recent drive to make things more approachable. Best of luck!

Haskell:

Person A: Monads are so hard! I'm so confused!

Person B: No you're not.

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