Re: The Accessibility of Type Theory Research

[Daniel Yokomiso <address@hidden>]

 --- Steve Dekorte <steve@dekorte.com> escreveu: > 
> On Nov 20, 2003, at 6:37 AM, Peter J. Wasilko wrote:
> >> Most of OO people don't even heard about the
> sigma calculus but think
> >> they "grok" objects.
> >
> > My only quible with this logic is that it confuses
> mastery of a thing,
> > with mastery of the mathematics and notation used
> by academics to
> > discuss the thing.
> >
> > This raises the old Art - Craft - Science debate
> (see Knuth).
> 
> By the same logic it seems would could conclude
> Shakespeare didn't 
> "grok" english and Beethoven didn't "grok" music as
> they where ignorant 
> (respectively) of modern linguistic and musical
> theory.
> 
> -- Steve

English (as an art medium) and music aren't
mathematical models, so you don't need to understand
math to "grok" them. OTOH CS concepts are mathematical
models, they don't exist in the real world, so you
need to understand math to "grok" them.

Saying you "grok" OO without understanding the
possible object calculi (sigma calculus is just one of
them) is like someone claiming to "grok" FPL without
knowing lambda calculus. IMO if you want to "grok" OO
you should be able to explain the models of, at least,
Smalltalk, Self, Eiffel, Common Lisp, C++, Sather and
Obliq, the different calculi are just a formal and
simple way to express the ideas hidden beneath these
languages.

BTW, both english (as an art medium) and music are
much wider than the complete works of Shakespeare and
Beethoven. If you know just western music you can't
claim to "grok" all music, you can just "grok" western
music.

Best regards,
Daniel Yokomiso.

"Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called
'Ego'."
 -Friedrich Nietzsche

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