Re: [tlug] How the way you eat corn is interconnected to your programming habits

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2013-01-12 08:08 -0800 (Sat), s smith wrote:

> On 01/12/2013 04:23 AM, Christian Horn wrote:
> > Makes in interesting read, I think:
> > http://bentilly.blogspot.de/2010/08/analysis-vs-algebra-predicts-eating.html

I went through it slowly, thinking about my preferences first so as
to test each prediction he made. After a quick review of mathematical
analysis on Wikipedia, it was patently clear that I'm an algebraist. (I
love algebraic structures; I hate calculus.)

I do eat my corn in rows, and as I read on, that's what he had
predicted.

It was all fine up until the start of the programming bit. Yes, GoF[1]
was a revalation to me, back in my OO days, but no longer. I'm a
functional programmer, use the techniques in _On Lisp_, and I'm in
complete agreement with Paul Graham on the merits of OO.[2] I'm in that
company of Haskell programmers that think the Num typeclass[3] was a
mistake that should should have been Ring[4], and handling of program
options is obviously a monoid.[5]

Reading further, however, it seems that he'd discovered this too. So all
is not lost.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns_(book)
[2]: http://www.paulgraham.com/noop.html
[3]: A set of types having +, -, * and / operations, as well as
     operations inherited from some other typeclasses.
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_(mathematics)
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoid

> Fascinating.  For me his editor preference prediction worked.
>
> Would it be worth putting up a poll for vi/emacs/other that correlates 
> how you eat cornwith editor preference?

Probably not. When I need to edit a file, I invariably choose vi over
Emacs. That said, I quite like the concept of Emacs and consider it to
be in many ways a much better and more elegant editor. It's just got
a horrendously inefficent user interface for the most common editing
operations.

Then again, I do also find emacs to be annoyingly monolithic, from
the point of view of a Unix user, which strikes me as something an
algebraist would think.

In other words, a poll would be pointless because, as with so many
polls, it can't capture the complexity of the issue.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson         <cjs@example.com>         +81 90 7737 2974

To iterate is human, to recurse divine.
    - L Peter Deutsch