[Haskell-cafe] On the verge of ... giving up!

[jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr]

I will be impolite. 

Andrew Coppin says: 

> For what it's worth, a "category" is a "class" bearing some additional 
> structure. A "class" is exactly like a "set", except that all sets are 
> classes, but only some classes are also sets. There *is* a reason for 
> this, but nobody knows what it is. (They say it's because some classes are 
> "bigger" than sets - which is absurd since a set can be of any size...)

If this were the first posting of A.C., I would suspect that he is pulling
my leg, that his brilliant sense of humour surpasses my comprehension, so
I should be filled-up with deep respect for such a wonderful mind. But
enough is enough. Now, would it be really too much asking that - at least
from time to time - Andrew Coppin think twice before saying things he -
apparently - knows NOTHING about? 

Haskell café, is, well, café... even no tobacco restrictions. But, since 
we
have here people who want to learn something structured and based on some
real competence, saying e.g. that "CPS monad is for making unmaintainable
code", or "I know very little about calculus. (And I can't begin to imagine
what it has to do with electricity...)", is becoming a nuisance. 

I skipped the postings of A.C., as most of people on this forum I happen to
know, and there was no personal reason to react. But A.C. engages
in a dialogue with newbies, and this is, from the pedagogical point of view,
rather harmful. Please stop. Another "example", for the rewriting this time: 

>  foldr (+) 1 [2,3]
>  foldr (+) (1+2) [3]
>  foldr (+) (1+2+3) []
>  1+2+3
>  3+3
>  6

This "derivation" is pure rubbish. Read the definition of foldr, please,
would it be the first time in your life??? The functional foldr is NOT
tail recursive! And, actually, as EVERYBODY knows, Haskell is not a
rewriting system. 

So, a good advice for J. Vimal: do whatever you wish, but avoid this fellow
A. Coppin, since he leads you nowhere. 

Jerzy Karczmarczuk