I'm interested in functional programming (Haskell), print publishing, open science,philosophy of aesthetics, research, joy, painting, diagrams, and teaching.
Haskell, the programming language: What makes it beautiful is that it's an ideal for the sake of exploring ideals.
In a world of pure efficiency and rationalism, it lives in the future: continuously showing what's possible and influencing other languages. What makes it interesting is how it's in between pragmatic and idealistic: you can build world-class systems with it and you can learn by doing, and yet it puts ideals like type safety, elegance, and composability above speed and ease of learning. On the fully idealistic side might be a math textbook, a proof, or a specification.
Now see how it can be a speculative design language to describe, create, and reimagine the world. Going lateral into nature, biology, and train systems. Transpiling it. People will rise to the occasion if they're inspired, like going to an art museum or cathedral. Make learning it beautiful.
Finish me: 100 lengths in Haskell,there are 17, a model for creative thinking
"We shall not cease from exploration
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
- T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Previously: UChicago linguistics, Google senior software engineer (gVisor), consultant on reproducibility in open science, information designer, indie print publisher, painter.
Collage with public domain
scientific bird illustration, 2022