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> the claims it's perfectly readable, and anyone who says anything otherwise is either stupid, lying, or too poor to understand it are not useful. Yes: It is p

by geocar 7y ago

> the claims it's perfectly readable, and anyone who says anything otherwise is either stupid, lying, or too poor to understand it are not useful. Yes: It is perfectly readable once you know how, and anyone who says anything otherwise is just plain wrong. Including you 58 days ago. I don't know if you are wrong because you are lying, or you believe this because you are stupid. I wrote off at the time that it was well-meaning ignorance, but it doesn't really matter: The key thing, that is, the thing holding you back from reading it, is you. I believe you can learn to read it and read it as well as me as quickly as with a few months of study. If you think anyone else is telling you otherwise, ignore them. I don't believe you need to not be "poor" to do it - everything you need is available to you. It's all about whether you want to do this or not. > Every "inspired" languages hits these issues, depending on how "strange" it is: Objective-C is ugly, Lisp is alien, and on the far end APL derivatives are simply labelled as unreadable. That doesn't mean they're bad languages, but to those promoting it: drop the attitude, and understand why we have reservations. We understand because we were once you: Every X-evangelist you're talking to (where X is Lisp, or Objective-C, or in this case K) was once like you in at least the way of not knowing X, so we know you are wrong in a way (as we now know X) that you simply cannot comprehend yet. Think about that. Maybe re-read Paul Graham's blub article and appreciate really what it means to be the blub programmer. Many K programmers have some familiarity with APL. Some (like myself) have used Objective-C and Common Lisp (I've got over a decade of professional history in CL), and loads of other languages. Until you learn K, all you have is our testimony; our gospel that this is worth learning. You can literally do anything in blub, being able to do it easier is the point.

gjulianm 7y ago
> I believe you can learn to read it and read it as well as me as quickly as with a few months of study. Then it's not perfectly readable. That, or your definition of readable is useless because then any programming language is readable given enough study time. > being able to do it easier is the point. I still haven't seen any example where it is actually easier. Shorter? Yes. Easier? Very debatable.
- geocar 7y ago
  > Then it's not perfectly readable. That, or your definition of readable is useless because then any programming language is readable given enough study time. Given a fragment of Chinese, if you do not know Chinese, would you say it is unreadable? What possible definition of "unreadable" could you have that would make that a useful statement? No, I don't think speaking to a language as being "unreadable" is particularly helpful. A very careful reader might interpret your claim that "K is unreadable" as "gjulianm can't read K" but I wonder what exactly is the point of even saying it in the first place? Maybe you mean "approachable" -- a fully reasonable statement, but one reflecting your inability to say anything else meaningful about it. On the other hand, if I know Chinese, it's entirely possible for me to point to a gibberish statement (for example, on a tattoo), and say that it's unreadable. I'm definitely referring to something else here. Now maybe we just accept having two different definitions for "readable", but I think yours has real harm. I think referring to something that you do not understand with the same word that means nobody can understand it might confuse people, and I just cannot understand for the life of me, why so many programmers would want to intentionally confuse people like this. If I pick up some random K code, I can read it. I could make a change to it, and other K programmers will understand what I did and why. That's good enough for me. > I still haven't seen any example where it is actually easier. Shorter? Yes. Easier? Very debatable. I think the max of list example is a good one. I've also previously observed some examples that might be less mathematical. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22467866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22467866 - Here I beat a custom "database" by 50x with one line of q (a very similar language to k) [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799376 - A six-character solution to the rock-paper-scissors game, using q to analyse the creation of the solution [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21680743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21680743 - Here's our friend the bin operator again, showing how it appears in production. [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19659590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19659590 - One of my favourite k/q features is views. [5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16851862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16851862 - String parsing is "obvious" in k/q where it isn't in other languages In these cases (and many others) q/k is "easier" because it gets the job done faster. If you can beat my k with your JavaScript then good for you (And I'd like to see it! I can always get better!), but I usually can't. I find the solution faster with k, the program runs faster with k, and those are the things that matter to me when I say "easier". I absolutely do not mean "more approachable".
blincoln 7y ago
Take a break from K (or any other shorthand language of your choosing) for a year or five, then come back and try to figure out what the code you wrote when you were using it frequently is actually doing. Now do the same with well-written, verbose C-style or Python code (no shorthand/abbreviations, no lambdas, no ternary notation, etc.). Shorthand code in any language is bad in the long run because it's unmaintainable except by people who work with it on a regular basis. You are making the same arguments as Perl fanatics who used every possible abbreviation in their language 25 years ago. How much of that is even comprehensible now without a major reverse-engineering effort?
- geocar 7y ago
  > You are making the same arguments as Perl fanatics who used every possible abbreviation in their language 25 years ago. How much of that is even comprehensible now without a major reverse-engineering effort? Perl is inscrutable in a different way: It is impossible to insert an instruction reliably into a statement allows the student to observe what is going on without changing it: Program flow can change mid-sentence. This isn't true of K. > Take a break from K (or any other shorthand language of your choosing) for a year or five, then come back and try to figure out what the code you wrote when you were using it frequently is actually doing. I've been looking at K code for more than five years at this point, and I don't have any problems reading code written by K programmers a decade ago or more. I think you're completely wrong about this.
  - qayxc 7y ago
    > I've been looking at K code for more than five years at this point, and I don't have any problems reading code written by K programmers a decade ago or more. I think you're completely missing the point here. The assumption wasn't that old code is unreadable, but that you have trouble understanding it after NOT looking at ANY K code for five years.
    - Firadeoclus 7y ago
      If that's true it's a trade-off which may or may not be worth it. It's not inherently bad or unacceptable. Many other skills require a period of re-learning after a five year gap. Where do you believe K sits on the scale of re-learning effort involved, riding-a-bike seconds to minutes, or months to years of effort? I've only learned a little APL so far, and that really didn't take much effort so I'd be surprised if it would take me more than a month of dedicated learning to get fluent in the language. If that's what it takes to learn from scratch (the language, not the concepts common to maths and many programming languages), I would expect re-learning to be possible in less than a week. That does not strike me as too big an obstacle in many cases.

by geocar 7y ago

gjulianm 7y ago

> I believe you can learn to read it and read it as well as me as quickly as with a few months of study. Then it's not perfectly readable. That, or your definition of readable is useless because then any programming language is readable given enough study time. > being able to do it easier is the point. I still haven't seen any example where it is actually easier. Shorter? Yes. Easier? Very debatable.

geocar 7y ago
> Then it's not perfectly readable. That, or your definition of readable is useless because then any programming language is readable given enough study time. Given a fragment of Chinese, if you do not know Chinese, would you say it is unreadable? What possible definition of "unreadable" could you have that would make that a useful statement? No, I don't think speaking to a language as being "unreadable" is particularly helpful. A very careful reader might interpret your claim that "K is unreadable" as "gjulianm can't read K" but I wonder what exactly is the point of even saying it in the first place? Maybe you mean "approachable" -- a fully reasonable statement, but one reflecting your inability to say anything else meaningful about it. On the other hand, if I know Chinese, it's entirely possible for me to point to a gibberish statement (for example, on a tattoo), and say that it's unreadable. I'm definitely referring to something else here. Now maybe we just accept having two different definitions for "readable", but I think yours has real harm. I think referring to something that you do not understand with the same word that means nobody can understand it might confuse people, and I just cannot understand for the life of me, why so many programmers would want to intentionally confuse people like this. If I pick up some random K code, I can read it. I could make a change to it, and other K programmers will understand what I did and why. That's good enough for me. > I still haven't seen any example where it is actually easier. Shorter? Yes. Easier? Very debatable. I think the max of list example is a good one. I've also previously observed some examples that might be less mathematical. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22467866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22467866 - Here I beat a custom "database" by 50x with one line of q (a very similar language to k) [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799376 - A six-character solution to the rock-paper-scissors game, using q to analyse the creation of the solution [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21680743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21680743 - Here's our friend the bin operator again, showing how it appears in production. [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19659590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19659590 - One of my favourite k/q features is views. [5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16851862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16851862 - String parsing is "obvious" in k/q where it isn't in other languages In these cases (and many others) q/k is "easier" because it gets the job done faster. If you can beat my k with your JavaScript then good for you (And I'd like to see it! I can always get better!), but I usually can't. I find the solution faster with k, the program runs faster with k, and those are the things that matter to me when I say "easier". I absolutely do not mean "more approachable".

blincoln 7y ago

Take a break from K (or any other shorthand language of your choosing) for a year or five, then come back and try to figure out what the code you wrote when you were using it frequently is actually doing. Now do the same with well-written, verbose C-style or Python code (no shorthand/abbreviations, no lambdas, no ternary notation, etc.). Shorthand code in any language is bad in the long run because it's unmaintainable except by people who work with it on a regular basis. You are making the same arguments as Perl fanatics who used every possible abbreviation in their language 25 years ago. How much of that is even comprehensible now without a major reverse-engineering effort?

geocar 7y ago
> You are making the same arguments as Perl fanatics who used every possible abbreviation in their language 25 years ago. How much of that is even comprehensible now without a major reverse-engineering effort? Perl is inscrutable in a different way: It is impossible to insert an instruction reliably into a statement allows the student to observe what is going on without changing it: Program flow can change mid-sentence. This isn't true of K. > Take a break from K (or any other shorthand language of your choosing) for a year or five, then come back and try to figure out what the code you wrote when you were using it frequently is actually doing. I've been looking at K code for more than five years at this point, and I don't have any problems reading code written by K programmers a decade ago or more. I think you're completely wrong about this.
- qayxc 7y ago
  > I've been looking at K code for more than five years at this point, and I don't have any problems reading code written by K programmers a decade ago or more. I think you're completely missing the point here. The assumption wasn't that old code is unreadable, but that you have trouble understanding it after NOT looking at ANY K code for five years.
  - Firadeoclus 7y ago
    If that's true it's a trade-off which may or may not be worth it. It's not inherently bad or unacceptable. Many other skills require a period of re-learning after a five year gap. Where do you believe K sits on the scale of re-learning effort involved, riding-a-bike seconds to minutes, or months to years of effort? I've only learned a little APL so far, and that really didn't take much effort so I'd be surprised if it would take me more than a month of dedicated learning to get fluent in the language. If that's what it takes to learn from scratch (the language, not the concepts common to maths and many programming languages), I would expect re-learning to be possible in less than a week. That does not strike me as too big an obstacle in many cases.