All of the languages you mentioned are watered-down and inferior versions of the programming models invented by APL and J. By that I don't mean that APL/J are

All of the languages you mentioned are watered-down and inferior versions of the programming models invented by APL and J. By that I don't mean that APL/J are unilaterally better -- there are plenty of practical reasons to choose R/Matlab/numpy -- but they are unquestionably more beautiful and visionary. They hang together at a deep level in a way those languages do not. They are also much harder to learn, and much more fun. On the readability of APL (terrific video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Mt0GYHU9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Mt0GYHU9A Alan Perlis on its beauty: https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/perlis78.htm https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/perlis78.htm