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You added more criteria to this high school student. Almost every one of them will have to use and program spreadsheets, few learn to program using an ALGOL-lik

by kick 7y ago

You added more criteria to this high school student. Almost every one of them will have to use and program spreadsheets, few learn to program using an ALGOL-like language. The idea you put forth disqualifies any programming language that isn't derivative of ALGOL: it's exactly the sort of thing used against Lisp dialects, and many other languages that have shown themselves to be quite wonderful ("What's cdr? That's stupid!" "You're telling me you use color instead of operators? Malarkey!" "What in Hell is Reverse Polish Notation?! This is America!"). APL (and derivatives, but using APL as it's the chief example of the paradigm and because if you know APL, k is readable) doesn't require a semester in a classroom, it requires a week or two and a book. (Question: when did they start teaching AP Computer Science?)

saagarjha 7y ago
Somewhat; there's a number of things about K which make it uniquely difficult to understand. One is of course that it is unpopular and nobody has really seen it before: while this isn't an inherent issue with the language, it is a practical one, since K exists in a world where other programming languages exist and people with experience in those languages exist. Something that can be understood by more of them is generally a nice feature to have. K's style of short identifiers makes it even harder to be accessible: while many non-programmers can kind of guess the purpose of some programs from these, K makes this essentially impossible. I would have to disagree with your assertion that APL's derivatives are fundamentally better and/or faster to learn actual computer science (note: AP Computer Science–which I think started in the '80s?–does not actually teach this very well, either). I think they're probably comparable, although it might be easier to get some of the numerical stuff because many students might be familiar with math.
- kick 7y ago
  I would have to disagree with your assertion that APL's derivatives are fundamentally better and/or faster to learn actual computer science Have you tried learning any of them? I think this is an unfair thing to say without having at least given it a try.

by kick 7y ago

saagarjha 7y ago

Somewhat; there's a number of things about K which make it uniquely difficult to understand. One is of course that it is unpopular and nobody has really seen it before: while this isn't an inherent issue with the language, it is a practical one, since K exists in a world where other programming languages exist and people with experience in those languages exist. Something that can be understood by more of them is generally a nice feature to have. K's style of short identifiers makes it even harder to be accessible: while many non-programmers can kind of guess the purpose of some programs from these, K makes this essentially impossible. I would have to disagree with your assertion that APL's derivatives are fundamentally better and/or faster to learn actual computer science (note: AP Computer Science–which I think started in the '80s?–does not actually teach this very well, either). I think they're probably comparable, although it might be easier to get some of the numerical stuff because many students might be familiar with math.

kick 7y ago
I would have to disagree with your assertion that APL's derivatives are fundamentally better and/or faster to learn actual computer science Have you tried learning any of them? I think this is an unfair thing to say without having at least given it a try.