/prog/ - Why schools teach functional programming

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-10 21:22

Now how can we possibly manage to level the playing field between the Alan Kays and the Jackson Pollocks in class? The answer is simple. Use a programming language and a programming paradigm that is generally not used by high school students. I favor Haskell, Scheme or maybe ML or O'Caml. From what I have seen as a TA, high school programmers mostly write code in C, C++, Java, C#, some dialect of Basic or some dialect of Pascal. All of these languages are imperative languages while none of the suggested languages are imperative. Well, ML and O'Caml are kinda imperative but I'd focus on the functional parts of these languages.

Can you imagine what the results of teaching freshmen these languages are? Well, except the endless bitching and moaning of the students who have prior experience in languages like C++ and Java. "This is useless", "Why don't we learn C++", "That's not how it works back home", "Nobody outside of academia uses these languages", "These language are too slow". I know all the complaints already. But they're not important. What is important is to level the playing field between freshmen who believe they know everything already and freshmen who know that they don't know anything about programming. Of course we're not going to level the playing field perfectly. Prior programming experience means something, no matter in what language people programmed during high school. Consequently even the leveled playing field will not look like the Bonneville Salt Flats. It'll be more like the Low Countries but at least it's not the Himalayas anymore.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 15:07

>>40
If x and y are the same ``variable'' (same address), they will always be the same, even if the current value changes over time.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 15:26

>>41
But you can change the address of y without changing the address of y.

x = &foo;
y = x;
y = y | 0xff1234bc;

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 15:37

>>35

I didn't realise you were only arguing about the syntax of the thing.

1 = x² + y² and x² + y² = 1 mean the same thing in math. In Haskell, the first one is a pattern match on 1 and the second one defines +.

Sure looks similar to me.

f(x, y) = z, assuming = means assignment, calls f with parameters x and y, returning an assignable value and assigning z to it. In Haskell, it declares a function f which takes a pair.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 16:20

>>43
This is so unimportant and nitpicky. You are a fucking idiot if you believe this is a serious difference.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 16:59

>>44
Totally different semantics is ``so unimportant and nitpicky''?

You are a fucking idiot if you believe this is a serious difference.

Now I know you're trolling.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 17:10

>>43
So basically what you're doing is taking the multiple uses of the = character in Haskell and picking whichever you like depending on the point you're trying to make, even though from the start I had not even once mentioned Haskell.

Bra-fucking-vo.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 17:16

>>43
Also,

I didn't realise you were only arguing about the syntax of the thing.
1 = x² + y² and x² + y² = 1 mean the same thing

I said syntax. Meaning is semantics, which is not syntax.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 17:43

honestly you guys are retarded, shut up

neither of you are learning anything from the other.

nobody reading this is benefitting.

reflect a little and think about what you're doing.

Or just fuck off back to a place where discussions like this are welcome

you shitters are definitely not from here

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 17:56

>>48
Sorry, world4ch /prog/ is dead. This is the only place we can argue stupid shitty little details like this.
Nice job getting your post truncated though.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 18:19

>>45
It's unimportant because the mathematical semantics is available in Haskell, even if you don't get a choice of left-vs-right.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 18:25

>>46
Haskell is the most popular functional PL and is thus the default when someone discuss FP.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 18:50

>>51
thus my anus

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 22:42

Wow, I knew HASKELL NOMADS were faggots, but I didn't know how utterly stupid they were until now.

"MATH IS EQUIVALENT TO HASKELL HURR DURR" go fucking retard elsewhere.

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 23:27

>>28

aids-to-reasoning FP provides

those all go out the window once you can't assume an arbitrary function (that you didn't write) is pure, at that point you're just as well off as if you had decided to write your pure code in C using just SSA and recursion, the type system won't help you in either case

Name: Anonymous 2015-11-16 19:35

>>54

you can't assume an arbitrary function (that you didn't write) is pure

You can't assume the same arbitrary function doesn't rm -rf ~/* either, so what's your point?

Why schools teach functional programming

1 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-10 21:22

41 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 15:07

42 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 15:26

43 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 15:37

44 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 16:20

45 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 16:59

46 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 17:10

47 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 17:16

48 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 17:43

49 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 17:56

50 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 18:19

51 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 18:25

52 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 18:50

53 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 22:42

54 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-15 23:27

55 Name: Anonymous 2015-11-16 19:35