Understanding the Y-Combinator seems to be one of the functional programming right-of-passage things, and for good reason, it is fun. Not all of the articles out there spoke to me, so I took notes while coding it up in a way that I understood it.
My notes are attached in the form of a Scribble here How the Y Works, viewable here, and the source code version here y.
It is Racket, but it is really close to Scheme and if you wrote a couple of macros it would probably run on Clojure pretty easily.
The goal is for there to be no gaps in the code, it should be pretty obvious how each step was taken. Hand-coding it made it clear what was happening. This is what worked for me :).
Tag: Fun
How Mathematicians Eat Corn
Those who favor analysis eat in a spiral.
Those who favor algebra eat row-wise.
More data is required for the remaining styles.
(via bentilly)
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one of the most ambitious and influential surveys in the history of astronomy. Over eight years of operations (SDSS-I, 2000-2005; SDSS-II, 2005-2008), it obtained deep, multi-color images covering more than a quarter of the sky and created 3-dimensional maps containing more than 930,000 galaxies and more than 120,000 quasars.
It is hard not to dream about exploring space when you see what Sloan has to offer.
When is your math always wrong?
Last year in my Applied Linear Algebra class we were assigned a homework that introduced Backward Substituation, Forward Substitution, Horner’s Method. Something really interesting happened though as a side effect of the assigned work.
Continue reading “When is your math always wrong?”
EiffelStudio: A Contract for Success
A while back Eiffel Software (formerly ISE) held a contest to come up with a slogan for one of their products, EiffelStudio.
I submitted:
EiffelStudio: A Contract for Success
— Grant Rettke
And won!
They gave me a one-year license for EiffelStudio in return for signing away the slogan.
It was worth it… it is a great language!
Fun in the sun
Here is a great article on how to safely have fun in the sun by minimizing your UV exposure. Perfect for summer and a fun little project.
(via lifehacker)
A Philosophy of Cool for Non-Living Things
Cool can come from what a [thing] is or what it does. But at the core, Cool is about purity of expression, of material objects being infused with human energy, creativity and insight to make them more than just the sum of their parts.
— Mark Hoyer, WHAT IS COOL?, Cycle World 2/2010
I love Mark’s take on cool; from motorcycles to programming languages, it still makes sense. It makes me think about how great it is to be alive, living, in the present. It is a gift.
Funny Java Standards
Swing is the GUI standard for Java. Clojure is the awesomeness standard for Java.
(via Stuart)
The Experience of the Delight of Learning
The experience of the delight of learning is such a wonderful thing.
Have you felt it lately? How?
What is your PS1?
Mine is:
PS1='\u@\h:$pwd>'