[Haskell-cafe] about Haskell code written to be "too smart"

Peter Verswyvelen bugfact at gmail.com
Tue Mar 24 17:17:08 EDT 2009


Sometimes that is very hard when the writer is way smarter than the reader
:-)
2009/3/24 Conal Elliott <conal at conal.net>

> Another helpful strategy for the reader is to get smarter, i.e. to invest
> effort in rising to the level of the writer.   Or just choose a different
> book if s/he prefers.  - Conal
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Manlio Perillo <manlio_perillo at libero.it>wrote:
>
>> Yitzchak Gale ha scritto:
>>
>>> [...]
>>> So the bottom line is that Manlio is right, really. It's just
>>> that Haskell is still very different than what most
>>> programmers are used to. So it does take a while to
>>> get a feeling for what is "too smart".
>>>
>>>
>> Right, you centered the problem!
>>
>> The problem is where to place the separation line between "normal" and
>> "too smart".
>>
>> Your function is readable, once I mentally separate each step.
>> For someone with more experience, this operation may be automatic, and the
>> function may appear totally natural.
>>
>> When writing these "dense" function, it is important, IMHO, to help the
>> reader using comments, or by introducing intermediate functions.
>>
>>
>> Manlio
>>
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>
>
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