Comment by akst | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akst | Hacker News Reader

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> This is basically anti-intellectualism, the same kind of attitude that made Trump popular and that encouraged Brexit.

> its essence just because we're afraid of big words and the opinions of experts.

I think most of the distaste for terms like Monad, is a failure to communicate it's meaning to a lot of people, it reminds me a lot of Enterprise Java terminology with terms like factories, abstract/factories, Bean, ect, that provide just as much intuition into their own meanings from their names. And when you look up their meanings you get hit with even more obtuse terminology. Like for example a in a less formal discussion about programming, a term like "pure functions", can simply described as "stateless function" [1]. You don't need to automatically reach for the big words, when a more commonly understood word sufficiently communicates something. Unfortunately I'm not so sure there's such a word for monad however.

In the case of Elm, it has this approach to naming things with less formal names where it can use something more comprehensible. The author of the Elm language mentions this in a talk of his [1] (just scroll to the section on being direct).

I really see this more as a communication issue, not everyone in software has a duel degree in abstract mathematics & computer science, let alone a degree.

[1]: http://www.elmbark.com/2016/03/16/mainstream-elm-user-focuse...

That Elm talk is really interesting. Tx.

When it comes to Monad et al I'm reminded of this talk by Gilad Bracha. He points out that the function names and type names that stem from category theory are not very good at communicating their intent in programming. (my words) Monad could be named Flatmappable f.i. 'unit' and 'bind' can have more intuïtive names as well.

At the moment I get the impression that as Scala is becoming a safe and productive and widely used tool there are developers moving to more Haskell like pastures within Scala. Perhaps because that kind of programming is required for some specific problems. But quite likely as well because they hope that it will make them stand out as smarter programmers.

Some people may remember the so called "Peters principle". Informally it states that people get promoted until they've reached their level of incompetence.

Similarly some smart developers tend to increase the complexity of their code to keep themselves amused until they're struggling to understand it themselves. Joosts principle. :-)

Edit: the link to the talk https://www.infoq.com/presentations/functional-pros-cons

> He points out that the function names and type names that stem from category theory are not very good at communicating their intent in programming

This was my point exactly, also thanks for the link I'll have to checkout that talk :-)

I actually remembering seeing it at some point, this guy is a pretty great presenter, glad I watched it, Thanks again for the link. Now I remember I need to go and check out small talk to see what it's he's going on about.

The mathematical terminology that you dislike has already been well established and well defined after decades of use in many formal publications. It will probably be continued to be used for hundreds of years. In no way is "Enterprise Java Beans" analogous.

> The mathematical terminology that you dislike

I'm actually indifferent to the terminology, having used my fair share of Haskell/ML/Lisp, but I can see how you came to that assumption.

> in many formal publications

I'm aware of this, but the thing with this is not everyone in software has a computer science background, let alone an academic background. I'm a freelancer at the moment, but if I used most of this terminology in my workplace people would be giving me wtf looks.

> In no way is "Enterprise Java Beans" analogous

How so? All I said formal names in mathematic/computer science, give next to intuition into their actual meaning & when you look up their meaning, most of the results are riddled with more terminology. Same kind of goes for a lot of the Jagon in Java enterprise stuff, like beans/services/factories/etc. I wasn't saying their exactly the same, but more I had a similar experience when trying to familiarise myself with that stuff.

The danger of "intuitive" names and analogies is that they often don't capture the generality of the abstraction and can limit ones thinking. The mathematical terms are useful and communicate precisely and unambiguously (e.g. if someone says X is a Functor then I assume the Functor laws are satisfied). Ignoring established terminology creates insular communities and creates confusion (e.g. a C++ Functor versus a mathematical Functor, C void versus type theory void). I agree that better books and learning resources are needed, but changing names is anti-intellectualism, IMHO.

> I agree that better books and learning resources are needed, but changing names is anti-intellectualism, IMHO

To clarify I'm not suggesting changing existing names in mathematics or existing APIs, I'm just suggesting in documentation / blog posts / educational stuff we should avoid using the more intimidating terminology if a simpler term convoys the message better, especially if the terminology gets in the way of educational material doing it's intended purpose.

Maybe this wouldn't be a problem if mathematic education content was more accessible, I don't know but at the moment I really don't think it is. Like it would nice to have a nice accessible book like "Category Theory in Python/JS" or something to refer people to... But I agree, changing names is anti-intellectualism

> The danger of "intuitive" names and analogies is that they often don't capture the generality of the abstraction and can limit ones thinking

I get that, & I feel in mathematics that is important, but in writing an API having slightly dishonest names is okay. Like a name like `flatMappable` vs' `Monad` even though not all Monad's work like a flatMap, but I get what you're saying new users might think monads are just a collections API thing, but maybe if they saw it on an Optional/Error/Promise/Async/etc this wouldn't be a problem, I don't know. Maybe it's a matter of establishing a culture where the use of these names like flatMap are first demonstrated with none collection types, again I don't know. I'm really just throwing ideas out there, but I feel it's something to consider.

Oh well, hopefully things improve

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