> HN's top-voted comment... ...spawned a really interesting conversation on the PL design-tradeoffs of various special-purpose iteration/recursion schemes. >

> HN's top-voted comment... ...spawned a really interesting conversation on the PL design-tradeoffs of various special-purpose iteration/recursion schemes. > J, a universally admired language developed by Iverson. Even in hard-core PL communities that seems like a reach. Lots of PL courses exclude APL/J, which is a pretty strong empirical proof-point against universal (or even strong majority) admiration. Outside of PL enthusiast communities, array PLs sit somewhere between "niche" and "esoteric". I think there is a lot to admire in APL, J, et al. They clearly had far-reaching influence. But there's also a reason that the dominant reaction is closer to "um... heh" than admiration. There's no need to over-state the case here.