[Haskell-cafe] A Thought: Backus, FP, and Brute Force Learning

[OWP]

I made an error.  I meant FP to stand for Functional Programming, the
concept not the language.

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:54 PM, OWP <owpmailact at gmail.com> wrote:

> This thought isn't really related to Haskell specifically but it's more
> towards FP ideal in general.
>
> I'm new to the FP world and to get me started, I began reading a few
> papers.  One paper is by John Backus called "Can Programming Be Liberated
> from the von Neumann Style? A Functional Style and It's Algebra of
> Programs".
>
> While I like the premise which notes the limitation of the von Neumann
> Architecture, his solution to this problem makes me feel queasy when I read
> it.
>
> For me personally, one thing I enjoy about a typical procedural program is
> that it allows me to "Brute Force Learn".  This means I stare at a
> particular section of the code for a while until I figure out what it
> does.  I may not know the reasoning behind it but I can have a pretty
> decent idea of what it does.  If I'm lucky, later on someone may tell me
> "oh, that just did a gradient of such and such matrix".  In a way, I feel
> happy I learned something highly complex without knowing I learned
> something highly complex.
>
> Backus seems to throw that out the window.  He introduces major new terms
> which require me to break out the math book which then requires me to break
> out a few other books to figure out which bases things using archaic
> symbols which then requires me to break out the pen and paper to mentally
> expand what in the world that does.  It makes me feel CISCish except
> without a definition book nearby.  It's nice if I already knew what a
> "gradient of such and such matrix" is but what happens if I don't?
>
> For the most part, I like the idea that I have the option of Brute Force
> Learning my way towards something.  I also like the declarative aspect of
> languages such as SQL which let's me asks the computer of things once I
> know the meaning of what I'm asking.  I like the ability to play and learn
> but I also like the ability to declare this or that once I do learn.  From
> Backus paper, if his world comes to a reality, it seems like I should know
> what I'm doing before I even start.  The ability to learn while coding
> seems to have disappeared.  In a way, if the von Neumann bottleneck wasn't
> there, I'm not sure programming would be as popular as it is today.
>
> Unfortunately, I'm still very new and quite ignorant about Haskell so I do
> not know how much of Backus is incorporated in Haskell but so far, in the
> start of my FP learning adventure, this is how things seem to be seen.
>
> If I may generously ask, where am I wrong and where am I right with this
> thought?
>
> Thank you for any explanation
>
> P.S.  If anyone knows of a better place I can ask this question, please
> feel free to show me the way.
>
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