Functional / Meta Programming

Good introduction is Functional Programming for the rest of us

Functional / metaprogramming seems to try and do a lot of work to make small snippets of code that generate more code. The ultimate version of Don't Repeat Yourself. However, there are other deficiencies of programming that seem more important right now. It feels like it's making Bret Victor's Microwave problem even worse! Or, like, why can't a machine take care of the opening and closing of HTML tags for you?

• ITA Software saw a 10 to 1 code reduction over C++ (with STL, I think), and they still use it…hm..

Functional programming languages are really helpful when you're faced with writing a lot of code and you want to “write code that writes code for you”.

• If Lisp is slow, then you can always turn on optimization for the critical sections. From Practical Common Lisp

Everybody recommends a combination of SICP and Paul Graham's book, ANSI Lisp and On Lisp. As well as Programming Pearls and K&R.

• Norvig asserts 16/23 OO design patterns are not needed, good summary here. Norvig's great Rosetta Stone comparison between Python and Lisp, The important parts that python hasn't adopted yet are macros, which are apparently really important for good coders.
• Paul Graham on Lisp, talking about the “blub paradox” and how programming languages are slowly incorporating features done in Lisp in the 1960's.
• Norvig reduced coding time 10X
• In the real world (with generally simpler problems), business concerns are way more important than what language you use apparently. Source
• SICP lectures seem helpful too
• +1 for Haskell for a great good and Haskell founder intro video at OSCON. Also, Swift is also highly recommended by this guy for debugging ability and functional programming.

• Is it easy to maintain large projects with custom-designed meta programming?
• I hear it is hard to generalize code and make a library (maybe just for Forth) and collaborate on a large scale. reddit

https://www.udacity.com/course/viewer#!/c-cs212

Doing this one first, as Norvig seems more approachable.

So far excellent class.

Still stuck on Square Roots by Newton's Method, and how averaging works out okay…

• Special case of newton's method, invented by Heron of Alexandria. More at book website and Heron Alexandria square root

• Advanced (Functional + Metaprogramming) Tips/Book in R.
• Apparently scikit-learn is a well-implemented package too?

Nice summary of different programming styles at Leptonica Design Principles Paul Graham says live in the future and learn about it.