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I feel as if I am missing something here, some previous reading that would make this clearer? I do not understand how the code snippet he provides is "lyrical".

I feel as if I am missing something here, some previous reading that would make this clearer? I do not understand how the code snippet he provides is "lyrical". Any more stuff I could read on this sort of topic?

7thaccount 7y ago
His APL to GPU compiler is less than 1000 loc in it's entirety and the "comments" are the 400 page accompanying master's thesis. There are a few HN discussions u/arcfide and several YouTube presentations at functional programming conferences. Neat stuff! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565743 https://www.sacrideo.us/smaller-code-better-code/ https://www.sacrideo.us/smaller-code-better-code/
- i_don_t_know 7y ago
  I don’t think it’s a strong selling point that you need a 400 page book to make sense of a 1000 line program. I find the style of the Dyalog dfns library much more pleasant to read and much easier to follow.
  - 7thaccount 7y ago
    When it is an entire compiler and teaches you APL and compiler techniques? It is part thesis, part tutorial, and part textbook. Cool item. I honestly don't remember the page number, but it was definitely over 100.
    - i_don_t_know 7y ago
      It’s definitely an impressive piece of software and I realize that his thesis is much more than just “comments” to the code. My objection was to the implied claim that a 1000 line program is easy to understand and work with, easier than a much longer program. I don’t think that’s true if the 1000 line program is written in an incredibly terse style where a lot of contextual information has been deliberately eliminated. For example, in this post Aaron comes up with a bit of APL that’s a direct transliteration of “ Description #5: Increment the n field of the parent for nodes whose parent is of type 2 and kind 3 for each node by 1.” My claim is that an experienced APL and compiler programmer could figure out what the APL is doing at the level of “description 5”. But I think he/she would struggle to recognize the problem statement at the top “Pass Overview: Count the Rank of Indexing Expressions” because a lot of contextual information has been lost in the transliteration to APL. That information could have been included in the code in the form of comments or by assigning a helpful name to this snippet. Aaron didn’t do that by design, and he didn’t need to because he’s been working on this for years. It’s all in his head and now in his thesis. But if you’re not Aaron you have to read the thesis to learn the missing contextual information. Dyalog’s dfns library is including the contextual information inline in the form of comments and local utility functions. I prefer that to having to cross-reference some other piece of documentation.

7thaccount 7y ago

His APL to GPU compiler is less than 1000 loc in it's entirety and the "comments" are the 400 page accompanying master's thesis. There are a few HN discussions u/arcfide and several YouTube presentations at functional programming conferences. Neat stuff! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565743 https://www.sacrideo.us/smaller-code-better-code/ https://www.sacrideo.us/smaller-code-better-code/

i_don_t_know 7y ago
I don’t think it’s a strong selling point that you need a 400 page book to make sense of a 1000 line program. I find the style of the Dyalog dfns library much more pleasant to read and much easier to follow.
- 7thaccount 7y ago
  When it is an entire compiler and teaches you APL and compiler techniques? It is part thesis, part tutorial, and part textbook. Cool item. I honestly don't remember the page number, but it was definitely over 100.
  - i_don_t_know 7y ago
    It’s definitely an impressive piece of software and I realize that his thesis is much more than just “comments” to the code. My objection was to the implied claim that a 1000 line program is easy to understand and work with, easier than a much longer program. I don’t think that’s true if the 1000 line program is written in an incredibly terse style where a lot of contextual information has been deliberately eliminated. For example, in this post Aaron comes up with a bit of APL that’s a direct transliteration of “ Description #5: Increment the n field of the parent for nodes whose parent is of type 2 and kind 3 for each node by 1.” My claim is that an experienced APL and compiler programmer could figure out what the APL is doing at the level of “description 5”. But I think he/she would struggle to recognize the problem statement at the top “Pass Overview: Count the Rank of Indexing Expressions” because a lot of contextual information has been lost in the transliteration to APL. That information could have been included in the code in the form of comments or by assigning a helpful name to this snippet. Aaron didn’t do that by design, and he didn’t need to because he’s been working on this for years. It’s all in his head and now in his thesis. But if you’re not Aaron you have to read the thesis to learn the missing contextual information. Dyalog’s dfns library is including the contextual information inline in the form of comments and local utility functions. I prefer that to having to cross-reference some other piece of documentation.