> 1. reading from left to right This seems a strange quibble when it is an arbitrary convention that doesn't really matter in the slightest. It's just the natu

> 1. reading from left to right This seems a strange quibble when it is an arbitrary convention that doesn't really matter in the slightest. It's just the natural extension of the usual mathematical function composition f(g(x)) to include dyadic functions and thus do away with function/operator precedence. It doesn't make things any easier or harder if you were to prefer generalizing ((x)g)f instead so that the language could be read left to right, it's just a different convention. > 2. use of phonetic alphabet instead of hyeroglyphs. The purpose of the symbols in APL is that they are meant to be a "tool for thought" [0]. But I'm a mathematician so I was already trained to this way of thinking. Using more verbose languages becomes an exercise in tedium, they make programming feel like trying to chop down a tree with a herring. The "hieroglyphs" are a large part of what make APL feel like wielding a lightsaber by comparison. [0] http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~jzhu/csc326/readings/iverson.pdf http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~jzhu/csc326/readings/iverson.pd...