[Haskell-cafe] Re: Math questions

[Ivan Miljenovic]

On 28 May 2010 14:52, Richard O'Keefe <ok at cs.otago.ac.nz> wrote:> Yes,
that kind of thing.
> Remember, this was a BEGINNER-type question.
> If one is giving a *serious* answer, it has to be an answer a
> beginner (who has almost certainly never heard of Traversable)
> can make sense of, and if it uses functions that are pretty
> much certain not to be in said beginner's text book, said
> beginner has to be told quite clearly where to find them.

I think this is an example of the "Haskell effect" (more typically
seen on #haskell), which can be categorised as follows:

1) Someone asks a (usually rather simple) question.

2) People discuss this and provide several straightforward and relevant answers.

3) Out of curiosity (and probably a fair dose of masochism) others
then start to golf the solution into the most interesting approach
possible.

4) The person that asked the question initially gets lost (but is
quite often awed at all the amazing stuff that's going on around them
zooming past at light speed).

5) People suddenly remember that there was an initial question and
make an attempt to explain the more advanced solutions to the person
that asked the question in the first place.

6) They smile and nod and pretend they understand whilst putting a
note onto their copious TODO list to someday sit down and try to work
out wtf was going on.

7) ???

8) Profit!!!

-- 
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
Ivan.Miljenovic at gmail.com
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com