i learned haskell in my sleep. in particular, it was the night before my Programming Languages and Translators final and i had come down with some kind of really nasty cold/flu. i was desperately trying to get a grasp on the concept of lazy evaluation but i couldn't really concentrate for more than about 5 seconds at a time. when i finally gave up and closed my textbooks and went to bed, i was totally lost. over the night, i faded in and out of semi-consciousness as one tends to do when fevered. i have vague memories of bits of haskell and various abstract geometrical and mathematical concepts floating around my head with no real structure or consciousness to direct them. in the morning, everything was perfectly clear. somehow my unconscious had taken all the little bits that i'd read and played around with them till they fit together into something coherent.

anders pearson