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I disagree. The terseness of APL is the worst part about it. Its arcane symbols are a close second. I don't want my programming language to be as terse as poss

I disagree. The terseness of APL is the worst part about it. Its arcane symbols are a close second. I don't want my programming language to be as terse as possible. I want it to be easy to read and maintain. I don't see how APL is a step in the right direction at all, and IMO should just be relegated to the dustbin of history as a failed experiment.

nudpiedo 4y ago
don't you. think you can become better at it after some practice? let's compare that with mathematics notation or whatever... APL has less symbols than java's String methods.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
APL could serve the niche as a write only language. Not for code to be maintained, but for one offs. Of course, those one offs inevitably become code to be maintained, so maybe this niche doesn’t really exist.
- generalizations 4y ago
  It would also be a phenomenal spreadsheet language. the terseness means we get more visible code per cell block, the default data types mesh well, and the numerical orientation of the language is ideal.
- forrestthewoods 4y ago
  We already have regex for unmaintainable, read-only code.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    regex isn't a programming language, it is a language for describing strings that can be recognized by finite automata.
memorable 4y ago
APL (and probably many languages in the Iversonian family) are more geared towards expressiveness, although terseness plays a large part of the language design. Also, once you understand the rules of these languages when parsing expressions (which is always right-to-left unless the case of a parenthesis) and all the symbols, readability become less of a problem. As for maintainability, well, it kinda depends on you and whoever is going to maintain it. I do agree that the arcane symbols of APL is a minus, though. Which is why languages like J, K and Q are born: to make APL ASCII-friendly. Generally speaking, this seems to me like a comment from someone who doesn't give APL more than a cursory look. And if that relates to you, please, try APL, or any other languages in the family, just even once. You _may_ change your view about it.
- gjulianm 4y ago
  > Also, once you understand the rules of these languages when parsing expressions (which is always right-to-left unless the case of a parenthesis) and all the symbols, readability become less of a problem. This is a very limited view about readability. Of course, once you get used to anything, it is more readable. But if most programming languages have moved away from symbols other than the standard ones precisely because symbols are a readability problem (even some languages like Python have and/or/not instead of &&/||/!, and those are pretty standard). It's easier to read "mod(1, 3)" than "1 % 3". > As for maintainability, well, it kinda depends on you and whoever is going to maintain it. Again, putting these issues on the people is missing the point of the discussion. Does the language incentivize the creation of easily understandable, fixable functions? Is it easy to detect and fix bugs? For example, assembly is harder to maintain than Python because a bug in assembly is hard to find, possibly complicated to fix because coding in assembly isn't really that easy... on the other hand, a bug in Python probably shows up as an exception even, that tells you in which line of code it's crashing. > Generally speaking, this seems to me like a comment from someone who doesn't give APL more than a cursory look. And if that relates to you, please, try APL, or any other languages in the family, just even once. You _may_ change your view about it. Honestly, J/K/Q/APL make it really hard to give them more than a cursory look. And the problem is that I've never seen a really good argument to do more than that. For example, first time I saw Haskell, it was hard to pick up, but at least I saw value in the proposition of immutability, pure functions, etc. Not for all use cases, but at least for some. I haven't given Go more than a cursory look but, again, the idea of a compiled language with GC and memory safety looks cool. I've never seen the value proposition of these family of languages other than "people who like them say they like them", and by the looks of the comments I don't seem to be the only one.
joezydeco 4y ago
I say the same thing about Rust and am regularly told to shut up.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
> arcane symbols I have never been able to shake the impression that APL is a troll language, like INTERCAL or brainfuck, except that part of the 'joke' is to insist that there's no joke. APL makes me feel gaslit.
- vanderZwan 4y ago
  The thing is, APL was originally designed as programming notation. It was used by Kenneth E. Iverson to discuss programming problems on blackboards with his students for years before it had an actual implementation. So it has much more in common with math notation as a result, which is why the focus is on expressing yourself tersely with symbols. Also: nobody has to worry about special keyboards with symbols when writing those symbols with chalk on a blackboard, right? So the medium shaped the mode of communication. I wonder what it would be like to learn programming that way, without using a physical computer. Maybe it would actually be a lot more pleasant for working through programming problems together? Mathematicians seem to be doing just fine working out their problems together on the blackboard with their notation after all. EDIT: Hah, just saw that elsewhere in the thread an actual mathematician laments the (ab)use of symbols in their field, so I guess I was wrong there. Well, in that case, maybe mathematicians and programmers (or at least language designers) should join forces and see if they can come up with a more ergonomic notation together. A new Bourbaki club, so to speak.
eschneider 4y ago
I spent a fair bit of time with APL back in the 80s on IBM 3090 mainframe and a 3278 APL terminal and I have to say that if you've got an "APL shaped problem" and some familiarity with the language, it's easy to read and not so hard to maintain. Learning curve is a bit steep, though...
deleted 4y ago
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nudpiedo 4y ago

don't you. think you can become better at it after some practice? let's compare that with mathematics notation or whatever... APL has less symbols than java's String methods.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

APL could serve the niche as a write only language. Not for code to be maintained, but for one offs. Of course, those one offs inevitably become code to be maintained, so maybe this niche doesn’t really exist.

generalizations 4y ago
It would also be a phenomenal spreadsheet language. the terseness means we get more visible code per cell block, the default data types mesh well, and the numerical orientation of the language is ideal.
forrestthewoods 4y ago
We already have regex for unmaintainable, read-only code.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  regex isn't a programming language, it is a language for describing strings that can be recognized by finite automata.

memorable 4y ago

APL (and probably many languages in the Iversonian family) are more geared towards expressiveness, although terseness plays a large part of the language design. Also, once you understand the rules of these languages when parsing expressions (which is always right-to-left unless the case of a parenthesis) and all the symbols, readability become less of a problem. As for maintainability, well, it kinda depends on you and whoever is going to maintain it. I do agree that the arcane symbols of APL is a minus, though. Which is why languages like J, K and Q are born: to make APL ASCII-friendly. Generally speaking, this seems to me like a comment from someone who doesn't give APL more than a cursory look. And if that relates to you, please, try APL, or any other languages in the family, just even once. You _may_ change your view about it.

gjulianm 4y ago
> Also, once you understand the rules of these languages when parsing expressions (which is always right-to-left unless the case of a parenthesis) and all the symbols, readability become less of a problem. This is a very limited view about readability. Of course, once you get used to anything, it is more readable. But if most programming languages have moved away from symbols other than the standard ones precisely because symbols are a readability problem (even some languages like Python have and/or/not instead of &&/||/!, and those are pretty standard). It's easier to read "mod(1, 3)" than "1 % 3". > As for maintainability, well, it kinda depends on you and whoever is going to maintain it. Again, putting these issues on the people is missing the point of the discussion. Does the language incentivize the creation of easily understandable, fixable functions? Is it easy to detect and fix bugs? For example, assembly is harder to maintain than Python because a bug in assembly is hard to find, possibly complicated to fix because coding in assembly isn't really that easy... on the other hand, a bug in Python probably shows up as an exception even, that tells you in which line of code it's crashing. > Generally speaking, this seems to me like a comment from someone who doesn't give APL more than a cursory look. And if that relates to you, please, try APL, or any other languages in the family, just even once. You _may_ change your view about it. Honestly, J/K/Q/APL make it really hard to give them more than a cursory look. And the problem is that I've never seen a really good argument to do more than that. For example, first time I saw Haskell, it was hard to pick up, but at least I saw value in the proposition of immutability, pure functions, etc. Not for all use cases, but at least for some. I haven't given Go more than a cursory look but, again, the idea of a compiled language with GC and memory safety looks cool. I've never seen the value proposition of these family of languages other than "people who like them say they like them", and by the looks of the comments I don't seem to be the only one.

joezydeco 4y ago

I say the same thing about Rust and am regularly told to shut up.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

> arcane symbols I have never been able to shake the impression that APL is a troll language, like INTERCAL or brainfuck, except that part of the 'joke' is to insist that there's no joke. APL makes me feel gaslit.

vanderZwan 4y ago
The thing is, APL was originally designed as programming notation. It was used by Kenneth E. Iverson to discuss programming problems on blackboards with his students for years before it had an actual implementation. So it has much more in common with math notation as a result, which is why the focus is on expressing yourself tersely with symbols. Also: nobody has to worry about special keyboards with symbols when writing those symbols with chalk on a blackboard, right? So the medium shaped the mode of communication. I wonder what it would be like to learn programming that way, without using a physical computer. Maybe it would actually be a lot more pleasant for working through programming problems together? Mathematicians seem to be doing just fine working out their problems together on the blackboard with their notation after all. EDIT: Hah, just saw that elsewhere in the thread an actual mathematician laments the (ab)use of symbols in their field, so I guess I was wrong there. Well, in that case, maybe mathematicians and programmers (or at least language designers) should join forces and see if they can come up with a more ergonomic notation together. A new Bourbaki club, so to speak.

eschneider 4y ago

I spent a fair bit of time with APL back in the 80s on IBM 3090 mainframe and a 3278 APL terminal and I have to say that if you've got an "APL shaped problem" and some familiarity with the language, it's easy to read and not so hard to maintain. Learning curve is a bit steep, though...

deleted 4y ago

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