The Functional Programmer's Emoticons
Description
This meme uses the two-panel 'Drake Hotline Bling' format. In the top panel, Drake disapprovingly gestures towards a list of Japanese-style emoticons (kaomoji), such as (・ω・) and (¬_¬). In the bottom panel, Drake smiles and points approvingly at a screenshot of code, likely Haskell, displaying a series of cryptic infix operators and their type signatures (e.g., '<$>', '<**>', '<*+*> :: Applicative f =>'). The humor lies in the comparison: for a functional programmer, the dense, symbolic operators of languages like Haskell, which represent high-level abstractions like Functors and Applicatives, are more expressive and beautiful than actual emoticons. It's an inside joke for those familiar with the steep learning curve and abstract nature of functional programming
Comments
11Comment deleted
Some see a wall of cryptic symbols. A Haskell developer sees a beautiful conversation between a Functor and an Applicative, and it's pure poetry
Dropped (>*<) in Slack - half the team thought it was a kawaii emoji, the compiler saw “zip two Gens,” and I’m just here enjoying type-safe ambiguity
The real reason Haskell developers don't use emojis in Slack - they're saving all the good ASCII art for defining infix operators that make code reviews feel like deciphering ancient runes written by mathematicians who discovered category theory and never recovered
When you realize that '<*>' isn't just a cute ASCII bear face, but actually the applicative operator that sequences computations in a context - and suddenly your entire understanding of monadic composition shifts from 'aww' to 'aha'. The real power move is explaining to stakeholders why your codebase needs these operators: 'It's not line noise, it's just point-free style with higher-kinded polymorphism.' Meanwhile, junior devs are still trying to figure out if '(>*<)' is an emoticon or a legitimate type signature, and honestly, in Haskell, the answer is 'yes.'
I only send reactions that typecheck - if your mood doesn’t fmap via (<$>) under a Functor constraint, it doesn’t belong in the review
Kaomoji for mutable state machines; Haskell types for the pure hearts that fmap forever
Emoji are cute, but they don’t obey Functor or Applicative laws - give me (<$>) and (<*>) any day; at least those smiles compose
Nice Comment deleted
Isn't haskell beautiful? Comment deleted
what? Comment deleted
static method? Comment deleted