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> Its syntax is weird, archaic, and clunky, Maybe if you come from a CS background. From a math background, it's syntax is actually more natural than most con
by thayne 5y ago
> Its syntax is weird, archaic, and clunky,
Maybe if you come from a CS background. From a math background, it's syntax is actually more natural than most contemporary programming languages. For example, : is used for assignment, because = has the normal mathematical meaning. Blocks use parentheses because that's how you group stuff in math.
Maxima is very much a domain specific language, where the domain is mathematics.
- mkl 5y agoI come from a maths background, and I disagree. Maths would more likely use ":=" for mutating assignment, not ":", which I've never seen. I also don't think I've ever seen a sequence of steps in maths denoted by parentheses. More commonly they're in a numbered list. 1960's ALGOL-60 used ":=" for assignment and "begin" and "end" for blocks.
- pfdietz 5y agoI've seen := become standard in math to mean definition, not mutating assignment.