What do you mean by infinite lists?

I recently posted a story on Mathstodon which was relatively well received. Sharing it here as well, and seeing how people love a good professor story, I intend to share more interesting encounters I've had with various PL researchers in the future. 

I'm sorry that I am downright lazy just copying the post word by word to here. I would not be surprised if grammatical errors are scattered throughout the story like sprinkles on cake frosting. I could have rewritten it more carefully, added more descriptive prose, spun a few more creative elements into the anecdote. But it's been a tough and rough month, and I am having quite enough, so you will get what you will get for now. No complaints please. I will deliver something better next time, but not today.

John Li from Northeastern visited our group this week. He asked extremely good questions and I was inspired by how capable he is in manipulating and tying up various theoretical concepts in one intricate web in his mind... Which reminds me of a memory. 

Story time. 

Third year undergraduate and I was working through a pretty fun bachelor thesis project under the supervision of Alan Mycroft. The task was to implement a reactive programming language under a novel type system by Patrick Bahr et al that guarantees a plethora of nice properties. Thats not too important. 

What is important was that Marcelo Fiore got a bit interested in my work and how the underlying type system works. For those who do not know Marcelo, dude is a brilliant theoretical computer scientist (emphasis on the word theoretical). His natural habitat is abstractions. He breathes and speaks in strange tongues, something something category theory. 

Anyway, I set up a Zoom meeting with Alan and Marcelo, where I gave a brief overview of my project. I thought I was doing a very good job for 5 minutes until Marcelo interrupted me at one of the first few slides. 

"Sorry, what do you mean by " infinite list"  here?" 

Ummm, words failed me on the spot. According to my undergraduate-level brain, there is no definition to be unfolded here. Infinite... As in infinite... As in many many many? I was silent for a minute struggling to conjure a synonym as Marcelo wore that confused look throughout.

Alan cleared his throat and suggested that I continue for now instead of getting stuck. So I awkwardly trotted on with the slides but with confidence shaken. Why would Marcelo not understand what an infinite list is? 

As I went through the slides, Marcelo's eyebrows were knitted in this dumbfounded confused state and he was distracted. Didnt seem to be following nor paying attention to what I was saying. His mind was wandering in another dimension.

Five minutes passed without any question from my audience. And then I heard a lightbulb go click and Marcelo's eyes gleamed like gemstones.

"Ahhhhh! I get it! The infinite list. It is a FINAL COALGEBRA!" 

Right. I guess so.

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