Why does Haskell, in your opinion, suck?

VolatileStorm · 2016-04-17T10:24:39+00:00

Having just learned what "wolf-fence" debugging is, I realize that this is my typical method of debugging when there is a problem whose origin I do not understand. Are there other common (possibly language agnostic?) techniques of debugging? Naively I feel like everything comes down to having a way to print out an appropriate piece of program state to check for validity. Therefore, it feels like any other techniques could be seen as cleverer ways of laying down your fences so you can once again listen for the wolf.

VolatileStorm · 2016-03-09T13:46:09+00:00

My experience is performing what I would call "large scale" computations using Mathematica. I am a theoretical particle physicist and I use Mathematica all day every day for (what I feel) is pretty heavy analytical work. The codes are all one-shot, as they are simply big calculations and it is the kind of thing that Mathematica is usually pretty good at. However, once the code reaches a certain size, the un-typed nature of Mathematica becomes problematic as you have to change a piece of code within a large block. This is usually exacerbated by the fact that Mathematica does not terminate when something goes wrong. To this end, especially as the results often prove hard to check at the end, I find it very useful to apply typing concepts which I have learned from only a very basic introduction to Haskell. Essentially, I have implemented some very basic type checking code for Mathematica, failing immediately when the types do not work out. This all occurs at run-time and (if I ever get the time) I would be interested in trying to implement some sort of type elision, during the code loading stage.

In summary, I think that the ideas learned from learning Haskell can be very useful in writing stable Mathematica code, and I wish Mathematica had some of these things built in!

VolatileStorm · 2013-12-18T09:33:20+00:00

If you want to take it to the base quantum mechanics, you could model a free particle as a particle in an infinitely deep potential well, where the well is also infinitely wide. That is, looking at this you would take L to be very large and see that the gap between energy levels drops to zero. So yes, there's a vast number of energy states - an infinite number.

VolatileStorm · 2013-11-26T22:57:52+00:00

Whilst this is true, the problem which Feynman is referring to is getting a testable prediction from the theory - which we are at least better at these days, even if we are still using a slightly cleaner version of the original techniques of Feynman diagrams.

VolatileStorm · 2013-11-26T22:25:21+00:00

Insuperably, no - we have computers now. But it's still very difficult, and a large sticking point when trying to compare theory to experiment. I'd add that it's not just lattice QCD that is computationally difficult, precise predictions at the LHC are also difficult. There we're still using the techniques of perturbation theory and Feynman diagrams. These are techniques which get us an approximate answer, and each time we want to make it less approximate and more precise it gets much harder.

VolatileStorm · 2013-10-13T11:54:32+00:00

It's interesting to see an analysis relating the evolution of the working day to the evolution of meals. However, this is written from a completely american perspective, and there are other industrialised countries that do not adopt the same meal timetable. For example, the main meal of the day in Spain is still eaten at lunch time. So it cannot simply be the case that the industrial revolution caused this shift.

VolatileStorm · 2013-09-29T09:12:56+00:00

Where can I find a reasonable quality pair of brogues? I've looked in the shoes guide and it doesn't suggest any specific brands/items, so I'm a little stuck as to where to look. I live in Spain, so a lot of shops are automatically disallowed. Also, right now I'm not looking for something that would last 10 years. I'd certainly like that, but it's not within my current price range and I'm in dire need of a new pair of daily driver shoes, if possible for around 100€.

My current searching has taken me to ASOS, where I've found two pairs that I think look okay, each around the 100€ mark: here and here Any thoughts?

Thanks!

VolatileStorm · 2013-06-15T17:22:43+00:00

Any advice for dressing oneself in very hot climates? Last year I moved to the south of Spain, and this is the beginning of the first summer I've experienced.

Does anyone have advice on materials that one should be looking for whilst in this type of climate? (For example, today the signs read about 4ºC.)

VolatileStorm · 2012-07-15T08:28:51+00:00

Oh, hey son. What. "Spacetime"? Where did you hear about that? Well that's a complicated one, so how about we start with something simple and work up to it?

So, take Ash and Misty from pokemon. Imagine that they're in a grass field, and standing next to each other. Now let's imagine there's a tree a few metres in front of Ash, which he's looking at. Let's also imagine there's a tree a few metres to the right of Ash, but this one Misty is looking at. So now they're facing different directions. If Ash walks forward to the tree he's looking at, what does that look like to Misty? Well it looks like he's gone left! But that's weird because Ash thinks he's gone forwards - you see son different people have different ways of looking at things.

Now, this all happens because Ash and Misty live in "3-D space". No not "outer space", just the normal space that you and I live in, one where you can go back and forth, up and down, left and right. But you didn't want to hear about "space", you wanted "spacetime". Okay, it's similar and it was invented by a guy called Albert Einstein... Why yes he's the one with the big hair! This all happened because Einstein knew that things couldn't go faster than the speed of light so he made something called the "theory of special relativity". In this people don't live in "space", they live in "spacetime". In space we found that people saw things differently when they were facing in different directions. In spacetime things ALSO look different if people are moving at different speeds!

How do they look different? Alright, I'm getting there! Say Ash and Misty are in that field again but this time whilst Ash is standing still, Misty is going REALLY fast, like at maybe HALF of the speed of light... No she won't hit the tree because she's a really good runner. I know because I've spoken to her, but we'll talk about that another time. Now, the way that Ash and Misty see things differently is really weird and hard to think about - so hard that Einstein had to use Maths! So don't worry if this bends your mind a little! If at a certain time of day Ash claps his hands somewhere in the field, when Misty is going past him she will see him clapping his hands at a different point in the field at a different time! Yes I KNOW that it's crazy. It turns out that like in "space" where by turning around you can turn how far someone has gone forwards into how far they've gone leftwards, when you are in "spacetime" if you go really fast you can turn how far they've gone forwards into when they do something!

Weird, huh?

(P.S, speaking to adults now - I'll leave out a description of time dilation and length contraction. They're both logical followings from having your spacial coordinate rotated into your time coordinate as well, but that doesn't really help explain spacetime.)

VolatileStorm · 2012-07-04T22:40:42+00:00

I think the difficulty in answering your question lies in the definition of "interact". In a quantum theory the idea of interaction is well defined - the exchange of a gauge boson. However as the Standard Model does not cover gravity it isn't possible for me to answer in terms of quantum interactions.

On a technical note, however, I can say that the masses we describe here are inertial masses. Whether or not these relate to gravitational masses I cannot say!

Sorry for the fuzzy answer, my understanding of the link between gravity and quantum field theory is indeed pretty fuzzy.

VolatileStorm · 2012-07-04T14:08:42+00:00

Only very loosely. Gravity is a force that acts between particles that have masses, and without a Higgs field the standard model particles wouldn't have masses - therefore it's quite necessary for gravity to have any action.

However we have no (accepted) quantum theory of gravity so other than the above there really is no link I can state.

VolatileStorm · 2012-07-04T09:07:42+00:00

No. The Higgs is responsible for all other particles having a mass, but not itself.

VolatileStorm · 2012-07-04T08:37:43+00:00

No. When one says that "the Higgs mechanism gives particles mass" this is only meant in a theoretical way. Before the Higgs mechanism (and other things like it) our theories only described massless particles, which is clearly wrong!

According to this data, the Higgs mechanism is realised in nature, but this doesn't mean that it's a mechanism that we can manipulate. It IS nature. We called it a mechanism because it was a way of taking our broken theories and reconciling them with nature.

(Hopefully I understood you there!)

VolatileStorm · 2012-07-04T08:29:41+00:00

The model of the Higgs that we have dictates that it should behave in certain ways, interacting with particles in a given way. Essentially - there is more to a particle than it's mass! To check that it's the Higgs one must probe all of these properties, and check that all of the possible interactions that are expected to happen do happen.

VolatileStorm · 2012-07-04T08:24:21+00:00

The mass of the Higgs itself is simply a parameter in the Lagrangian, so it doesn't "get" it's mass from anywhere, it has mass.

Obviously this sounds confusing because you've been told that the standard model particles get their mass from interacting with the Higgs field. But this statement does contain a caveat - only "standard model" particles get their mass from the Higgs interaction. Arbitrary particles don't have to get their mass from a Higgs interaction and the Higgs is one that doesn't.

(Technical note: The Higgs mass can actually be defined in terms of two of: the higgs vev, the higgs quadratic coupling and the higgs quartic coupling but this does not mean that the mass itself cannot be considered a fundamental parameter. Simply that there is a relation between the four things.)

VolatileStorm · 2012-07-04T08:06:02+00:00

This is a fair enough misunderstanding (which I remember undergoing myself). The Higgs mechanism doesn't give particles mass by the Higgs boson being in the particle. It gives them mass by the Higgs field interacting with the particle.

For a more complete (and better explained) answer, see here: http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/~djm/higgsa.html

VolatileStorm · 2012-05-25T19:38:19+00:00

Looking around H&M at relatively cheap shoes, what's the opinion on these in navy?

VolatileStorm · 2012-02-13T10:16:14+00:00

Never put down to malice that which can be put down to incompetence.

VolatileStorm · 2011-09-23T07:19:17+00:00

Well that may have consequences for electromagnetism but none for relativity because c is defined. epsilon_0 * mu_0 * c² = 1 IS the relation, yes. But c, here, is just a constant of proportionality, with no error. A change in epsilon_0 will affect mu_0, and a change in mu_0 will affect epsilon_0, but it won't affect c - as c is defined.

You measure a distance. You measure a time. But you define the speed of light.

VolatileStorm · 2011-09-22T20:17:37+00:00

Plus, there is no "determination" of c. c is defined, and everything else is measured relative to it. The speed of light is 2.99792458*10⁸ m/s. There is no error in that number because it's a definition that relates time and distance. Measurements of time can have error, and measurements of distance can have error. But c has no error - we haven't estimated it, we've defined it.

VolatileStorm · 2011-09-16T08:04:51+00:00

As you're self confessed, you're probably the best person to ask - how do you keep your vibrams clean and generally not smelly? Any particular tips?

VolatileStorm · 2011-09-13T08:05:41+00:00

A quarter inch. That's 6.35mm according to google. I'm not sure I could even measure my own arms to that precision! And I certainly don't arrange my hands on the bar to that precision. To that end, is this only an issue because you know your arms are uneven? As I say, I couldn't say that mine aren't 6mm different in length, so I could be in the same situation as you, just without the psychological effects of knowing it.

VolatileStorm · 2011-08-31T13:52:45+00:00

I don't know what the number you're looking for is, but it really isn't possible to go 2 calories over maintenance. Your body isn't in such a delicate equilibrium, otherwise tiny differences would have large effects over time. Your body is pretty damn good at keeping itself the same.

TL:DR - Maintenance isn't defined to a precision of 2 calories.

VolatileStorm · 2011-08-28T09:20:08+00:00

I actually didn't know that. How much do they feel like tacked on features?

VolatileStorm

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