Talks to Watch

Gerald Jay Sussman: The Role of Programming (Dan Friedman's 60th Birthday)

WWilliam Byrd1 video here
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22K views · Dec 2, 2014 · 27:45 · 0 HN recommenders · 3 mentions · discussed 2022–2024

Gerald Jay Sussman speaks at Dan Friedman's 60th birthday celebration about how programming helps formulate and clarify ideas. He argues that ambiguous mathematical notation hinders understanding.

Why Hacker News points people here: Cited for Sussman's argument that programs make ideas precise in a way standard math notation does not.

Functional programmingTech pioneers & interviewsPure mathematicsTalk#sussman#notation#sicm#mathematics#scheme

What Hacker News said 3

Cites ithayley-pattonJan 2022

Sussman argues ambiguous math notation makes physics hard; programs clarify

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> But humans dislike, and much prefer infix with its complicated operator precedences Depends on what you're writing; Gerald Jay Sussman claims that edge cases in mathematical notation (and corner-cutting of sorts in what is written) makes physics quite hard to grasp in "The role of programming" [1]; hence the Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics book, which includes many Scheme programs which explicate everything. [1] this video

in “In defense of complicated programming languages” · view on HN
Cites itMathnerd314May 2022

“I think he says that in every talk he gives.”

One of several Sussman talks repeating the same point

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I think he says that in every talk he gives. link , this video , link , etc. There's a 2002 paper where he uses the term: link

in “Thinking in an array language” · view on HN
Cites itleocDec 2024

Sussman's frustration with ambiguous notation motivated SICM

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Certainly Gerry Sussman's frustrations with ambiguous notation were a big reason for his decision to create SICM! this video

in “Derivatives don't always act like fractions (2021)” · view on HN