Post Aznbya9c0GsHUNF1to by jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
 (DIR) More posts by jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
 (DIR) Post #AznbyRXk1BpOmbSflA by jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-10-30T15:13:14Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       There's something that didn't really crystallise for me for a long time, which I think I might have learned from Bob Harper implicitly, not sure.If you like someone's research and want to emulate it, it is more important to read the things that they had *read* than to read the things that they had *written*.Obviously you should read it all, but I often run into people who are banging their heads against something I wrote when I was just a beginner in a topic trying to understand it myself, and they would be a lot better off reading whatever I had been reading at the time. (A good way to figure out what someone had been reading is to look at the bibliography in their paper or note!)
       
 (DIR) Post #AznbyZuitcxskCH8gy by jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-10-30T15:16:12Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       For example, I often find people who want to "become" Jon Sterling reading my old note on Artin glueing that I wrote with Bas Spitters.If you want to become me, you should not read what I wrote when I was trying to figure it out. You should read what *I* was reading! As can be seen in that note, I was reading Marcelo Fiore's paper on NbE from 2002. Read it, and write your own note.
       
 (DIR) Post #Aznbya9c0GsHUNF1to by jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-10-30T15:14:49Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       The other thing to remember is that everything is written at a particular point in time in the midst of a particular community discourse & conversation. When you find two apparently incompatible viewpoints represented in two "canonical" papers (even by the same person), this is not a contradiction. Time passes, people learn, the questions they are trying to answer change. Context matters.
       
 (DIR) Post #AznbyiTl3Fk7JAjEPY by jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-10-30T15:18:49Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       Or, I wrote a kind of combative note about (essentially) algebraic descriptions of universe hierarchies. What's the big deal? Seems so weird to be belabouring this point...But at that point in time, the community discourse was overwhelmingly favouring a pseudo-scientific point of view on type theory that has almost died out today. We won! But now the entire discussion is unrecognisable. Reading a piece of "battle propaganda" and trying to map it to today's discourse isn't that useful...