alt Hacker NewsI feel like introducing lambda calculus (using JS syntax) would be less cumbersome and convoluted than referring to "the challenge" without really justifying it and deferring to respect the rules for so long. But maybe some people entirely unfamiliar with these concepts find this approach easier?
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biorach • today at 8:45 AM
I found this to be the most accessible introduction to the Y combinator I've yet read.
I found it extremely confusing.
It sets a challenge as a rhetorical tool, but then completely fails to honour the challenge through the bulk of the explanation.
- don’t use recursion: spends multiple paragraphs implying that a function calling itself isn’t recursion
- don’t use declaration: ignoring that defining arguments to a function is declaration
I’m not saying the article is “wrong”. But I thunk I’d have preferred a plain intro to lambda calculus.
(Writing this as someone who has struggled to learn “real” functional programming the few times I’ve tried over the past 20+ years, but who very much likes using RxJS and the functional flavour of lodash and wishes I could see deeper into that black hole.)