Comments on: The Maybe Monad (In Ruby) http://www.programmersparadox.com/2008/02/15/the-maybe-monad-in-ruby/ Long form thoughts from a Software Engineer Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:42:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: James Norris http://www.programmersparadox.com/2008/02/15/the-maybe-monad-in-ruby/comment-page-1/#comment-109 James Norris Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:32:28 +0000 http://www.programmersparadox.com/2008/02/15/the-maybe-monad-in-ruby/#comment-109 Your "maybe" operator sounds a lot like the SQL NULL value, especially in the sense that it allows a kind of three-valued logic. I'm not sure it's a big win however. Your “maybe” operator sounds a lot like the SQL NULL value, especially in the sense that it allows a kind of three-valued logic. I’m not sure it’s a big win however.

]]> By: Tom R http://www.programmersparadox.com/2008/02/15/the-maybe-monad-in-ruby/comment-page-1/#comment-106 Tom R Wed, 20 Feb 2008 04:14:31 +0000 http://www.programmersparadox.com/2008/02/15/the-maybe-monad-in-ruby/#comment-106 I think the fundamental problem with the idea of a Maybe operator or similar construct is that you violate a precept of Computer Science - readability. Depending on where you look, the maintenance cost of computer science projects during their life cycle is upwards of 60-80% of total development effort - making straight forward code much better then short code. This is one of the reasons variable names have been getting longer and more descriptive in the .Net world of development. With the advent of intellisense - what does it matter if the function or variable is 15 characters long if you can type 4 letters and auto-complete. What's important is that another programmer with less knowledge can follow your code. This reminds me of the obfuscation projects people do in C. Sure its possible to write code like that - but it doesn't buy you a thing. I think the fundamental problem with the idea of a Maybe operator or similar construct is that you violate a precept of Computer Science – readability. Depending on where you look, the maintenance cost of computer science projects during their life cycle is upwards of 60-80% of total development effort – making straight forward code much better then short code. This is one of the reasons variable names have been getting longer and more descriptive in the .Net world of development. With the advent of intellisense – what does it matter if the function or variable is 15 characters long if you can type 4 letters and auto-complete. What’s important is that another programmer with less knowledge can follow your code.

This reminds me of the obfuscation projects people do in C. Sure its possible to write code like that – but it doesn’t buy you a thing.

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