I second this. In quantitative finance cubic splines are often, simply, out of the question. However, we end up using montonic cubic splines quite often.
Not sure if you guys are aware but there are solvers existing (most of which are proprietary) that actually give optimal strategies with every possible hands given a betting pattern. They are used extensively as study tools by professional players.
I just tried this one which works like a charm (just run the exe from the zip in github releases ; even comes pre-loaded with a wide amount of preflop ranges, which seem to come from a previous solve) : https://github.com/bupticybee/TexasSolver
Searching with "poker solver haskell" only seem to show very immature projects.
I share your opinion. I found the book Real World Haskell very useful http://book.realworldhaskell.org/ It has a few nice chapters about system programming, database interactions and a few other use cases.
I am a native Arabic speaker, I enjoyed the article, however there are a few mistakes.
In 2. The exceptions are called plural exceptions which happen much less than the general rule, Otherwise most of Arabic follows a very specific rule to making plurals from singulars.
In 7. Adjectives have no gender, and therefore al-kutub hadra' (الكتب حضراء) "The books, she is green" this translates to the books are green (hadra is an adjective and has no gender)
In 9. Formally Arabic numbers are read right to left, i.e. we read the least significant digit first. Although very few people do this.
In 10. It is next to impossible to understand any written text which is a 1000 years by the average Joe, including the Qur'an
7. I don't know what makes you say this. Adjectives in Arabic agree in gender, number and case. The masculine of hadra' is ahdar.
10. This is true for the average Iosif, but if you study MSA (like American students invariably do) these texts really are accessible. A short sura from the Qur'an is taught in the second semester Arabic curriculum.
I'm a native Arabic speaker, and I agree with you on point 10. If you've learned formal Arabic properly - i.e. attended school - then even texts from the pre-islamic era should be accessible. (Mostly poems, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muallaqat)
However, there is a definite decline in the number of people who can fluently and eloquently use MLA. Keeping this (sad) trend in mind, you will definitely find native speakers who have trouble understanding not only the old texts, but even the more silver-tongued of the modern ones. This isn't unique to Arabic. Perhaps a parallel can be found in the constant confusion between the possessives and the abbreviated verbs with English pronouns even by native English speakers.
I'm not claiming that formal and eloquent Arabic is going to die any time soon, however the rise of movements such as Masry (http://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8...) is a sure tell sign that maybe there aren't as many people speaking it as we thought there are.
And I believe something should be done about this.
Khadra' here is a form of plural, not the feminine of akhdar.
The literal translation might be "she is green," but the correct translation is "the books are green." No native arabic speaker will think of the books as feminine while referring to them in plural, but in singular objects' gender is strangely ingrained in our minds:
