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

William Byrd · 21.9K views · 2014-12-02 · 27:45

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

Cited for Sussman's argument that programs make ideas precise in a way standard math notation does not.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2022–2024

Topics

Functional programmingTech pioneers & interviewsPure mathematics
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sussmannotationsicmmathematicsscheme

What people said

leoc · 2024-12 · Reference

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

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Mathnerd314 · 2022-05 · Reference

I think he says that in every talk he gives. [LINK] , [VIDEO] , [LINK] , etc. There's a 2002 paper where he uses the term: [LINK]

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hayley-patton · 2022-01 · Reference

> 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] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by William Byrd, played through YouTube.

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