On 6 July 2015 at 10:49, Steven D'Aprano steve@pearwood.info wrote:
On Sun, Jul 05, 2015 at 11:50:00PM +0200, Sven R. Kunze wrote:
Seems like we stick to this example once again. So, let me get this straight:
- I can add, subtract, multiply and divide real numbers.
- I can add, subtract, multiply and divide complex numbers.
I don't think that this is a complelling analogy for calling regular functions and awaitable functions.
I actually really like the analogy, as the "Why can't complex numbers be just like real numbers?" reaction is pretty common when folks are first learning to use them for things like signal analysis. I know it didn't really sink in for me at university - it was only a couple of years into doing digital signal processing full time that the concepts involved in switching back and forth between linear real number based time domain analysis and cyclical complex number based frequency domain analysis really started to make sense to me.
There's a wonderful page at http://betterexplained.com/articles/a-visual-intuitive-guide-to-imaginary-nu... which not only does a great job of providing a relatively intuitive explanation of the behaviour of complex numbers as an answer to the question "What is the square root of negative 1?", it also compares them to the original reactions to the "absurd" notion of negative numbers as an answer to the question "What is the result of subtracting a larger number from a smaller one?".
"Why can't coroutines be just like subroutines?" strikes me as being a similar case where the answer is "because not everything can be appropriately modelled as a subroutine", but that answer isn't going to make intuitive sense if you've never personally encountered the limits of subroutine based algorithm design.
I also think the analogy helps provide good design guidance, as folks are already familiar with the notion of "use real numbers if you can, complex numbers if you need to", and extending that to an attitude of "use subroutines if you can, coroutines if you need to" would be a *very* good thing in terms of encouraging maintainable designs.
"Are complex numbers better than real numbers?" is hopefully a self-evidently nonsensical question - some things are better modelled as complex numbers, others as real numbers, so the only reasonable answer is to ask "What are you trying to model?". "Are coroutines better than subroutines?" is the same kind of question, just applied to algorithm design rather than numeric modelling.
Cheers, Nick.