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Do you have trouble discerning "cobble" vs "coddle"? Maybe; how about with context? "We cobbled together some crazy hack," vs. "We coddle our infants to show lo

Do you have trouble discerning "cobble" vs "coddle"? Maybe; how about with context? "We cobbled together some crazy hack," vs. "We coddle our infants to show love and affection." Arguably this comparison is quite similar to your "((<]):) and ((<[):)" example. Certainly the relationship between "]" and "[" is the same as between "b" and "d". Kids first learning to write often do mix up "d" and "b". The difference certainly seems subtle and arbitrary in the first stages of study. Do you have much experience in APL/J/K? As I see it, the point is that these languages offer some really spectacular ergonmics and expressibility _once one has gained fluency_ and in a way not possible elsewhere. This is really surprising! Perhaps that's why there's a lot of initial skepticism. In the space of all possible programming languages, it certainly seems like we've explored a pretty darn good chunk. There are thousands of languages trying out myriad different possibilities. We have everything from C to Java, from Haskell to Scheme, from Forth to Bash, and this still doesn't do justice covering all the paradigms and methodologies we programmers have dreamed up. Is it really possible that there's some random corner of language space that offers something more than localized and incremental benefits? Is it really true that there's some wacky scheme for writing code that is way shorter to write, pleasant to read, while also running fast? The answer is yes! And that's super cool! The catch is that it's a really weird family of languages, but if you spend the time to learn them well, I suspect that you will also see what we are talking about.

beagle3 7y ago
That’s an excellent comment. The only thing I have to add is that is’s not some newfangled concept that’s bad but we’ll only figure out why in a couple of years: APL has been around for over 60 years on various forms - it is about as old as Fortran and Lisp. In fact, APL was designed for paper, as a well-defined notation for algorithms in math and CS papers (which are still either sloppy with algorithm semantics or spend a lot of space specifying their non standard notation to this day). But since it was well defined, it was actually executable, and when computers were good enough, an interpreter was developed at IBM. That’s why APL has so many weird symbols (it’s a paper notation for math, at heart). K is a practical simplified version/dialect that uses only ascii (as does J, which is essentially full APL with ascii) One of the main complaints against APL is that they are write only. They take longer and more effort to read per character, granted, but per “semantic information”, for any reasonable definition, APl/J/K are way faster to read for someone proficient (and yes, I take proficiency for granted - the minute details in any language between Boolean short circuit, non local control transfer, integer/float conversions etc make proficiency essential)
kazinator 7y ago
With context, I can understand "We co___ed together some crazy hack" and "We c___le our infants to show love and affection." These sentences almost give definitions to the partially obliterated words, which is why we can guess what those words are. We can form plausible definitions, and then work backwards through our vocabulary by pattern matching. (I would probably guess "cuddle" for the second one; I have negative associations with "coddle", since it's mainly used in describing situations when ineffective adults are supported economically, and protected from the consequences of their bad decisions.) The strings in your APL/J/K are not existing vocabulary words that you're re-iterating with a context that gives their definitions. (Some of them may be idioms that appear in other programs, including other people's programs, but others are local inventions in the program.) If you obliterate parts of them with underscores and then hand that to the next programmer, they are screwed. Cobble and coddle are confusable. If we use cobble as a parameter name in some C function, and later refer to it as coddle elsewhere, only the compiler will notice. (Provided it's not the case that they are both defined, and have compatible type.) extern int coddle; // ... void frob(int cobble) { // [ snip 300 lines ] if (some_condition || (another_thing(foo) && some_condition(foo, coddle++)) do_that(); // [ snip 400 lines ] } My eyes will likely will not spot that the "coddle++" isn't "cobble++", and the compiler has nothing to say. Doubly so if I'm not aware of the existence of the coddle global. I remember copious instances in the past when my brain decided to hide a difference like that, and then "cached" the decision so that it remained hidden even after staring at the code. Once you believe that coddle++ is incrementing the cobble parameter, your brain may not let your eyes take a fresh look at it. Very recently, I was tripped up for a while by a sentence in some documentation that talked about PTP (precision time protocol) and P2P (peer-to-peer) in the same sentence. It didn't make sense until a fifth re-reading with a coffee break in the middle.
- xelxebar 7y ago
  Not sure what to tell you if you're convinced I'm lying. The latter half of your argument I find strange. It is arguning against APL/J/K using a C example. Mimicking this tactic, I could argue that C is completely unreadable because it indents things at so many different levels. If my x86 assembly did that it would be a huge mess and hard to follow. The languages are just so different that the syntax of one offers properties completely alien to the other, "What is this weird x=2 syntax? I just want 2 in my rax register and C doesn't let me do that?!" Part of the issue with APL/J/K is that to understand some of the coolness, you really do just need to trust the evangelizers and drink the koolaid. Maybe you'll end up thinking we're all just loonies, but if you give it an honest try, I suspect something will click and you'll see the point we're trying to make.

beagle3 7y ago

That’s an excellent comment. The only thing I have to add is that is’s not some newfangled concept that’s bad but we’ll only figure out why in a couple of years: APL has been around for over 60 years on various forms - it is about as old as Fortran and Lisp. In fact, APL was designed for paper, as a well-defined notation for algorithms in math and CS papers (which are still either sloppy with algorithm semantics or spend a lot of space specifying their non standard notation to this day). But since it was well defined, it was actually executable, and when computers were good enough, an interpreter was developed at IBM. That’s why APL has so many weird symbols (it’s a paper notation for math, at heart). K is a practical simplified version/dialect that uses only ascii (as does J, which is essentially full APL with ascii) One of the main complaints against APL is that they are write only. They take longer and more effort to read per character, granted, but per “semantic information”, for any reasonable definition, APl/J/K are way faster to read for someone proficient (and yes, I take proficiency for granted - the minute details in any language between Boolean short circuit, non local control transfer, integer/float conversions etc make proficiency essential)

kazinator 7y ago

With context, I can understand "We co___ed together some crazy hack" and "We c___le our infants to show love and affection." These sentences almost give definitions to the partially obliterated words, which is why we can guess what those words are. We can form plausible definitions, and then work backwards through our vocabulary by pattern matching. (I would probably guess "cuddle" for the second one; I have negative associations with "coddle", since it's mainly used in describing situations when ineffective adults are supported economically, and protected from the consequences of their bad decisions.) The strings in your APL/J/K are not existing vocabulary words that you're re-iterating with a context that gives their definitions. (Some of them may be idioms that appear in other programs, including other people's programs, but others are local inventions in the program.) If you obliterate parts of them with underscores and then hand that to the next programmer, they are screwed. Cobble and coddle are confusable. If we use cobble as a parameter name in some C function, and later refer to it as coddle elsewhere, only the compiler will notice. (Provided it's not the case that they are both defined, and have compatible type.) extern int coddle; // ... void frob(int cobble) { // [ snip 300 lines ] if (some_condition || (another_thing(foo) && some_condition(foo, coddle++)) do_that(); // [ snip 400 lines ] } My eyes will likely will not spot that the "coddle++" isn't "cobble++", and the compiler has nothing to say. Doubly so if I'm not aware of the existence of the coddle global. I remember copious instances in the past when my brain decided to hide a difference like that, and then "cached" the decision so that it remained hidden even after staring at the code. Once you believe that coddle++ is incrementing the cobble parameter, your brain may not let your eyes take a fresh look at it. Very recently, I was tripped up for a while by a sentence in some documentation that talked about PTP (precision time protocol) and P2P (peer-to-peer) in the same sentence. It didn't make sense until a fifth re-reading with a coffee break in the middle.

xelxebar 7y ago
Not sure what to tell you if you're convinced I'm lying. The latter half of your argument I find strange. It is arguning against APL/J/K using a C example. Mimicking this tactic, I could argue that C is completely unreadable because it indents things at so many different levels. If my x86 assembly did that it would be a huge mess and hard to follow. The languages are just so different that the syntax of one offers properties completely alien to the other, "What is this weird x=2 syntax? I just want 2 in my rax register and C doesn't let me do that?!" Part of the issue with APL/J/K is that to understand some of the coolness, you really do just need to trust the evangelizers and drink the koolaid. Maybe you'll end up thinking we're all just loonies, but if you give it an honest try, I suspect something will click and you'll see the point we're trying to make.