Comment by cubefox
14 days ago
> These FP talks are disguised elitism imo (not necessarily bad faith). Beta reduction and monadic transformers sound so cool, but that’s it job-wise.
They may be disguised mathematics. People are into math because it is neat / elegant / cool. So they study it regardless of whether it has a practical use or not.
Some programmers have serious math envy. This can be good if they are self aware about it and keep it in check, because it makes them better programmers. Otherwise they can a pain to work with. Seniors should be people that have dealt with this aspect of their own talent, not juniors who are promoted in spite of or because of it
Mathematics is just a kind of programming. And vice versa.
Programs fundamentally have state, while mathematical equations have not. Math is in its core declarative, while programming is essentially imperative, at least under the hood.