For a language at the "top of the abstraction continuum" (Paul Graham), Lisp functions tend to be disappointingly concrete
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ie, just for this applicative map, Clojure needs an ISeq - you must define first, next, more, cons, count, empty, equiv, seq
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The category theory view provides a unifying and simplifying discipline; the hacker way yields endless special cases
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On the other way, Lisp's limited applicative probably has a much lower cognitive burden. There isn't a cottage industry of "map" tutorials
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Is "functor with arbitrary arity" such a difficult concept? Why do all the applicative tutorials come out so tortured and complicated?
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Wow, that's actually a useful way to think of it. Applicative has always been pretty magical/mysterious to me.
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It's precisely what it is, and precisely how it's used
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Exactly! I probably need to use it more to really get my head around it.
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I find the fact that monads force linearization where as applicatives don't interesting, but haven't really done the work to grok that yet.
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a -> f b can't be run without first having an a; f (a -> b) gives you options
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Replying to
Yeah that's what I was thinking, but that's the most succinct description I've come across. Thanks!