<story><title>On being a PhD student of Robert Harper</title><url>https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-functional-programming/article/on-being-a-phd-student-of-robert-harper/B68BCF31384084D9FDCB17A7DF1DE7A0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>grumpyprole</author><text>&amp;gt; He&amp;#x27;d often go on intense (albeit well-informed) tangential rants, particularly about Python.&lt;p&gt;As an academic, it must be soul destroying to see the world dominated by ad-hoc efforts like Python. Just like Linux, it was one persons hobby project that repeated old mistakes and now threatens the existence of argubly better technology.</text></item><item><author>jstrieb</author><text>Can&amp;#x27;t speak to graduate student experiences, but I did take Dr. Harper&amp;#x27;s principles of programming languages class as an undergrad.&lt;p&gt;The course was ambitious and moved at a breakneck pace, and Dr. Harper could be a whirlwind in lecture. As some of the anecdotes mention, he&amp;#x27;s pretty opinionated. He&amp;#x27;d often go on intense (albeit well-informed), tangential rants, particularly about Python.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would have preferred a less comprehensive course with more time to let some of the abstract ideas settle, but I can imagine his attitude and approach being well-suited to energetic graduate advising.&lt;p&gt;For those curious about the material, we covered a significant portion of his &lt;i&gt;Practical Foundations of Programming Languages&lt;/i&gt; book: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.cmu.edu&amp;#x2F;~rwh&amp;#x2F;pfpl&amp;#x2F;2nded.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.cmu.edu&amp;#x2F;~rwh&amp;#x2F;pfpl&amp;#x2F;2nded.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>agumonkey</author><text>Maybe but not necessarily. It&amp;#x27;s possible they enjoy their little academic world where they can forget about average crap and pursue pure abstractions. Jump from conf to conf. And enjoy patiently the 30 years lag between discovery and mainstream application.</text></comment>
<story><title>On being a PhD student of Robert Harper</title><url>https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-functional-programming/article/on-being-a-phd-student-of-robert-harper/B68BCF31384084D9FDCB17A7DF1DE7A0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>grumpyprole</author><text>&amp;gt; He&amp;#x27;d often go on intense (albeit well-informed) tangential rants, particularly about Python.&lt;p&gt;As an academic, it must be soul destroying to see the world dominated by ad-hoc efforts like Python. Just like Linux, it was one persons hobby project that repeated old mistakes and now threatens the existence of argubly better technology.</text></item><item><author>jstrieb</author><text>Can&amp;#x27;t speak to graduate student experiences, but I did take Dr. Harper&amp;#x27;s principles of programming languages class as an undergrad.&lt;p&gt;The course was ambitious and moved at a breakneck pace, and Dr. Harper could be a whirlwind in lecture. As some of the anecdotes mention, he&amp;#x27;s pretty opinionated. He&amp;#x27;d often go on intense (albeit well-informed), tangential rants, particularly about Python.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would have preferred a less comprehensive course with more time to let some of the abstract ideas settle, but I can imagine his attitude and approach being well-suited to energetic graduate advising.&lt;p&gt;For those curious about the material, we covered a significant portion of his &lt;i&gt;Practical Foundations of Programming Languages&lt;/i&gt; book: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.cmu.edu&amp;#x2F;~rwh&amp;#x2F;pfpl&amp;#x2F;2nded.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.cmu.edu&amp;#x2F;~rwh&amp;#x2F;pfpl&amp;#x2F;2nded.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bruce343434</author><text>You don&amp;#x27;t have to be an academic for that. The world is full of imperfections. Marketing and luck are bigger factors than merit.</text></comment>