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by danwilsonthomas
3154 days ago
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Part of the reason why I personally was so upset by the talk was that it felt as if there was no room for discussion or debate on the points raised. In addition there was what felt like a lot of sniping towards features of statically typed languages that felt designed just to get a reaction from the crowd. The fact that there was an entire slide designated to tearing down a series of videos by SPJ felt not only irrelevant, but also disrespectful. There seemed to be a lack of willingness to meet halfway and concede there was anything useful from the other side. Perhaps most frustratingly, I know that RH is capable of much better, much more informative presentations. There might have been something worthwhile in here, but the tone, style, and majority of the content didn't make it worth digging out in my opinion. Regarding Haskellers' attitudes, I'll add that I haven't seen anything like what you describe at least on the Haskell subreddit. It could be happening in other forums but by and large it's been a welcoming community even to those that come in skeptical. |
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> The fact that there was an entire slide designated to tearing down a series of videos by SPJ felt not only irrelevant, but also disrespectful.
From the transcript:
"Simon Peyton Jones, in an excellent series of talks, listed these advantages of types." ... "And I really disagree just a lot of this. It's not been my experience."
How is that tearing down or disrespectful? I get there were a lot of glib bits in the talk, but as you point out, he's talked about these issues with more nuance at other times. It's a shame that hyper-focus on a couple of thrown off jabs at the costs associated with types is distracting folks from the very useful larger point he's discussion about levels of problems in programming, contexts of programs, and how languages that impose strong opinions about how to aggregate information can be counterproductive.
I think the Haskell community is, overall, very good and welcoming, but smugness does creep in a lot, IME. But if you want to talk about meeting halfway, I find that it's much less common to see static FP folks concede any benefits of dynamic languages (besides that they're "easier" in a kind of condescending way).