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No, I understand, but J is as much a notation as APL is. It may be a different notation to what you, as an APL programmer, are used to, but it is as much a nota

No, I understand, but J is as much a notation as APL is. It may be a different notation to what you, as an APL programmer, are used to, but it is as much a notation as APL. While you say that my judgement is clouded by not using APL, I say the opposite is true: from here, they're equally symbolic. The difference is, one of them uses symbols I can type.

rebootthesystem 10y ago
Well, we'll have to disagree then. I've had this conversation many, many times. Using a pile of ASCII characters is, objectively, a very bad idea. And, despite what you have said, it is not a notation. Hardware engineers have actually had contact with APL without knowing it. Programmer's manuals for many CPU's use notation derived from APL to describe how the CPU executes the code. It's intuitive and easy to read. Iverson himself used it to describe the inner workings of the IBM 360 even before APL existed. If I presented anyone with a databook or IBM 360 technical manual that used J's transliteration the very first statement out of their mouths would probably be "the printer fucked up, look this gibberish". Again --and I don't mean this an a personal attack at all-- with zero experience in APL it will be hard for you to understand the power and value of a real notation rather than using a mish-mash of ASCII characters and attempting to ascribe meanings to them. There is a huge difference between the two. Music notation is perfect parallel for the value and power of APL notation. I only wish it had been taken farther. Maybe someone will pick-up where Iverson left of and develop the next generation symbolic programming notation. In many ways we need to evolve past where we are today in order to gain the kind of power and expressiveness that, again, one can experience with music notation when composing and playing. Have a great day.

rebootthesystem 10y ago

Well, we'll have to disagree then. I've had this conversation many, many times. Using a pile of ASCII characters is, objectively, a very bad idea. And, despite what you have said, it is not a notation. Hardware engineers have actually had contact with APL without knowing it. Programmer's manuals for many CPU's use notation derived from APL to describe how the CPU executes the code. It's intuitive and easy to read. Iverson himself used it to describe the inner workings of the IBM 360 even before APL existed. If I presented anyone with a databook or IBM 360 technical manual that used J's transliteration the very first statement out of their mouths would probably be "the printer fucked up, look this gibberish". Again --and I don't mean this an a personal attack at all-- with zero experience in APL it will be hard for you to understand the power and value of a real notation rather than using a mish-mash of ASCII characters and attempting to ascribe meanings to them. There is a huge difference between the two. Music notation is perfect parallel for the value and power of APL notation. I only wish it had been taken farther. Maybe someone will pick-up where Iverson left of and develop the next generation symbolic programming notation. In many ways we need to evolve past where we are today in order to gain the kind of power and expressiveness that, again, one can experience with music notation when composing and playing. Have a great day.