[Haskell-cafe] Re: Against cuteness

[Benjamin L.Russell]

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:29:25 +0100, Achim Schneider <barsoap at web.de>
wrote:

>Benjamin L.Russell <DekuDekuplex at Yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> balance
>>
>Stop right there. Any further word about what the Taiji means would
>only make you look even more clueless. Take a scale if you want a
>symbol for balance[1].

Granted, I'm no expert on Taoism, so I am not qualified to comment on
the meaning of the Taiji.  Rather, I was merely trying to assign
meaning to a symbol that resembled the Taiji, but not to interpret the
Taiji itself.

>OTOH, laziness(yin) and strictness(yang) make a far better pair of
>unified opposites than the schemeish eval and apply (which's outer
>essences are both yang, changing to yin only by means of what they
>execute[2]).

Indeed.  But strictness would not characterize Haskell, would it?

>Still, you wouldn't represent the Maybe monad with >>=, now would you?
>Instantiating a symbol for a general principle to whatever you like
>constitutes pocketing.

Indeed.  The symbol would need to be modified and distinguished
appropriately.

>Anyway, I think it's too late for logo submissions. Personally, I just
>love the lambda-bind, it's truly haskellish, sleek, appropriately
>cryptic and lends itself well to ascii-art.

Agreed.

>What about a chicken holding a curry dispenser? In any case, I don't
>think a sloth is a bad choice as a mascot: It's most likely the most
>efficient animal on earth, and seeing it, you're bound to be mystified
>how it manages to get anything done.

It's indeed efficient, but also slow; while Schemers are accused of
knowing the value of everything, but the cost of nothing, a sloth
mascot could cause Haskellers to become accused of knowing the
efficiency of everything, but the speed of nothing, no?

>Water overcomes stone:
>Shapeless, it requires no opening:
>The benefit of taking no action.
>
>Yet benefit without action,
>And experience without abstraction,
>Are practiced by very few.

Nice poem.  Did you write it yourself, or can you document the source?

-- Benjamin L. Russell
-- 
Benjamin L. Russell  /   DekuDekuplex at Yahoo dot com
http://dekudekuplex.wordpress.com/
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