[Haskell-cafe] Category Theory woes

[Alexander Solla]

On Feb 18, 2010, at 4:49 PM, Nick Rudnick wrote:

> Why does the opposite work well for computing science?

Does it?  I remember a peer trying to convince me to use "the factory  
pattern" in a language that supports functors.  I told him I would do  
my task my way, and he could change it later if he wanted.  He told me  
an hour later he tried a trivial implementation, and found that the  
source was twice as long as my REAL implementation, split across  
multiple files in an unattractive way, all while losing conceptual  
clarity.  He immediately switched to using functors too.  He didn't  
even know he wanted a functor, because the name "factory" clouded his  
interpretation.

Software development is full of people inventing creative new ways to  
use the wrong tool for the job.