Invited Talk - Guy Steele
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters recommend it whenever someone asks how to read type-system or CS notation in papers.
What it is
Guy Steele's invited talk at Clojure/conj on the informal metanotation computer scientists use in papers to describe languages. He traces how this notation developed and why it is often unspecified and arcane.
Recommended by 7 HN commenters across 8 different months, 2017 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec Jach · 2020-05 · on “Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images”
The context here isn't the average American, but a high school student taking an AP test involving writing math -- where scoring well counts for the same credit as having passed the equivalent entry level course(s) in college. Besides, math is already pseudo language on top of pseudo language. Learning notation is part of math, I'll concede learning to type an expression on a computer is a different notation than writing it with pen, but if you can't learn that, why learn math? Each domain does its own thing too and isn't even necessarily consistent. Guy Steele gave a great talk a few years ago on "Computer Science Metanotation", and that's just one area of math: [this video] (Edit: And to conclu
Strong rec earleybird · 2021-12 · on “Mathematical Notation, Past and Future (2000)”
For a deeper exposition on language and notation, Guy Steele[0] is the definitive authority :-) - with some discussion here[1]. [0] [this video] [1] [LINK]
Strong rec amar-laksh · 2022-06 · on “Ask HN: How to get better knowledge about math notations in computer science”
Excellent talk by Guy Steele explaining the history of maths/comp notations that can probably lead you to the right path through original sources: [this video] Then have a look at this extremely underrated talk by Alexander Stepanov for basically falling in love with maths (he gives a long view of maths in general adorned with beautiful commentary): [LINK]
Recommends hellofunk · 2017-10 · on “Effective Programs: 10 Years of Clojure”
> I didn't really understand his talk I think he was too abstract Then you better stay away from another talk at the same conference, by Guy Steele [0] ! [0] [this video]
Recommends hyperion2010 · 2017-11 · on “Problems of Traditional Math Notation (2004)”
Not directly math but Guy Steel's talk at Clojure Conj [0] on computer science type notation touches on related issues and is a great watch. 0. [this video]
Recommends Jach · 2018-10 · on “Clojure at Netflix (2013) [slides]”
You would probably enjoy this talk by Guy Steele where he discusses the language of mathematics that computer science people use in their papers (Computer Science Metanotation) to talk about other languages. Funnily it's untyped and lacking a rigorous specification... [this video]
Recommends MathMonkeyMan · 2023-07 · on “Coroutines for Go”
Guy Steele Jr. worked on a language called "Fortress." There are a few good talks that he gives: - (toy problem) [LINK] - (parallelism) [LINK] - (languages) [this video]
Recommends dan-robertson · 2023-08 · on “How should I read type system notation?”
There was a Guy Steele talk a while ago on this topic. He also gives searchable names for some of the things (eg the ‘2d inference rule diagrams’). He calls it ‘computer science metanotation’, though I think it’s more of a PLT thing. [this video]