Most active commenters

    ←back to thread

    Why Isn't Functional Programming the Norm? [video]

    (www.youtube.com)
    296 points gyre007 | 13 comments | 17 Oct 19 10:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.425s | source | bottom
    Show context
    lewisjoe ◴[17 Oct 19 10:57 UTC] No.21280702[source]▶
    Richard Gabriel’s famous essay “Worse is better” (https://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html) is an interesting perspective on why Lisp lost to C. In a way, the same arguments (simplicity vs consistency vs correctness vs completeness) can be made for why functional programming lost to OOP.

    But those philosophical perspectives aside, personally I find my brain works very much like a Turing Machine, when dealing with complex problems. Apart from my code, even most of my todos are simple step-by-step instructions to achieve something. It’s easily understandable why like me, other non-math folks would prefer a Turing Machine over Lambda Calculus’ way of writing instructions.

    This could be why OOP/Imperative was often preferred over FP.

    replies(13): >>21280720 #>>21280760 #>>21280800 #>>21280835 #>>21280855 #>>21281061 #>>21281225 #>>21281281 #>>21281464 #>>21282667 #>>21283371 #>>21286296 #>>21288188 #
    slig ◴[17 Oct 19 11:05 UTC] No.21280760[source]▶
    Beware: JWZ doesn't like people visiting his website from HN.
    replies(2): >>21280909 #>>21281032 #
    1. geitir ◴[17 Oct 19 11:34 UTC] No.21280909[source]▶
    The fact to he took the time to do that shows who the real man-child is
    replies(2): >>21281020 #>>21281046 #
    2. Ygg2 ◴[17 Oct 19 11:51 UTC] No.21281020[source]▶
    That, or he hates the HN hug of death.
    replies(1): >>21281064 #
    3. gitgud ◴[17 Oct 19 11:55 UTC] No.21281046[source]▶
    The fact that it's the only site I've seen that demonstrates the ability to read HTTP referral headers from hacker news shows who the real hacker is...
    replies(2): >>21281197 #>>21281227 #
    4. dspillett ◴[17 Oct 19 11:58 UTC] No.21281064[source]▶
    Nah, just having a problem with the hug of death would be an explanation for redirecting to a polite static message saying "sorry, my site can't handle the load when HN links to it". What he has done instead is excessively diskish.
    replies(1): >>21281127 #
    5. wil421 ◴[17 Oct 19 12:08 UTC] No.21281127{3}[source]▶
    What has he done? Everyone’s commenting he doesn’t like HN but when I clicked the link everything looks fine. Serious question.
    replies(3): >>21281199 #>>21281208 #>>21281214 #
    6. krapp ◴[17 Oct 19 12:18 UTC] No.21281197[source]▶
    Please. The "real hackers" are proxying their requests and sending custom headers to begin with.
    7. rgoulter ◴[17 Oct 19 12:18 UTC] No.21281199{4}[source]▶
    It redirects to an image with a hairy testicle and gives a low opinion of HN readers: https://web.archive.org/web/20191014203443/https://www.jwz.o...
    8. robjan ◴[17 Oct 19 12:20 UTC] No.21281208{4}[source]▶
    You must be using Brave or a browser plugin which doesn't send referral headers. If you use a normal browser, it displays a testicle in an egg cup with a silly phrase complaining about the demographic of HN users.
    replies(2): >>21281329 #>>21281661 #
    9. ◴[17 Oct 19 12:20 UTC] No.21281214{4}[source]▶
    10. dtech ◴[17 Oct 19 12:23 UTC] No.21281227[source]▶
    Not sure if serious, but looking at referral headers is commonplace and trivial
    11. wil421 ◴[17 Oct 19 12:34 UTC] No.21281329{5}[source]▶
    I’m using iOS safari with AdGuard. It’s probably AdGuard.
    12. dorfsmay ◴[17 Oct 19 13:15 UTC] No.21281661{5}[source]▶
    I open everything for which I don't need to be logged in, in an incognito window, and this page worked fine.
    replies(1): >>21282520 #
    13. dspillett ◴[17 Oct 19 14:38 UTC] No.21282520{6}[source]▶
    An incognito window doesn't quite count as "if you use a normal browser". Unless your not using incognito is the unusual case for you, which it isn't for most users.

    Given a choice between changing my browsing behaviour to see his content or just blocking it so it (the testicle redirect or the other content) will never both my vision again, I go for the latter option.