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> 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 s

> 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.

schwartzworld 4y ago
> because symbols are a readability problem I think the difficulty of this is overstated. My kids are learning to read Armenian and English at the same time. 38 Armenian letters + 26 English ones, each with upper and lowercase versions. If a 6 year old can do it, you can learn a couple of new glyphs when programming. > 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. It's a little disingenuous to claim that something you've never tried to do is too hard and has no value. > Does the language incentivize the creation of easily understandable, fixable functions? Lol, that is literally the point of them. I've been really enjoying https://www.arraycast.com/ https://www.arraycast.com/ in which enthusiasts from several different Iversonian Array languages talk about how array languages enable them to solve problems differently.
- gjulianm 4y ago
  > I think the difficulty of this is overstated. I have my degree in mathematics and I've used my fair share of symbols. It's been a consistent finding in articles, books, classes and peer conversations that symbols are not that optimal. Inventing new symbols, or overusing them is frowned upon because they don't really make things easier to understand and can sometimes be a cause of confusion. > It's a little disingenuous to claim that something you've never tried to do is too hard and has no value. I'm not saying "it has no value", I'm saying that I've never seen a good argument to actually invest time in them. As I explained, other languages have clear value propositions. In J/K/Q/APL , the value proposition tends to be a vague "I like it" from people who like it. > Lol, that is literally the point of them Yes, 2_&{&/x!/:2_!x}'!R is very understandable. > I've been really enjoying https://www.arraycast.com/ https://www.arraycast.com/ Offtopic, but I really dislike how so many information out there is the inaccesible format that is "podcasts".
  - schwartzworld 4y ago
    > Yes, 2_&{&/x!/:2_!x}'!R is very understandable. Just as much so as սուրճ or コーヒー or קפה. > Offtopic, but I really dislike how so many information out there is the inaccesible format that is "podcasts". I can't think of a better format for what they are trying to do with the ArrayCast. It's not teaching people array programming, just a conversation between people who are proficient in it. What do you think makes podcasts inaccessible? For example, I often recommend https://soundcloud.com/lambda-cast https://soundcloud.com/lambda-cast to developers looking to understand functional programming. The conversational approach works well because some of the panelists are being taught these concepts for the first time and they ask great questions. There are plenty of books and articles on the subject, but conversational audio is a wonderful supplement.
    - gjulianm 4y ago
      > Just as much so as սուրճ or コーヒー or קפה. But far less than the equivalent code in, say, Python, or C, or any other language. That's the point. > What do you think makes podcasts inaccessible? Lack of visible, searchable structure and the requirement of audio (in those that don't have transcripts, which is a lot of them) to get the information.
mlochbaum 4y ago
APL is pretty big on immutability and pure functions too. Arrays are immutable, period, and the link below has John Scholes talking about the advantages of declarative programming back in 2005. And, uh, yes, APL tells you where the error is when you get one. It's pretty obvious you've bounced off due to a surface-level dislike for the syntax and are guessing about any other features it may have. https://www.dyalog.com/uploads/documents/Papers/declarative_prog.pdf https://www.dyalog.com/uploads/documents/Papers/declarative_...
- gjulianm 4y ago
  > It's pretty obvious you've bounced off due to a surface-level dislike for the syntax and are guessing about any other features it may have. I'm not saying APL doesn't have those features. I'm making examples of languages that have a clear value proposition. If APL is big on immutability and pure functions, then why use APL vs, say, Haskell or Clojure? Same with the "where is the error thing", I was explaining why maintenance isn't just a "depends on who maintains it" thing, in fact the example languages were assembly and Python, nothing to do with APL.
  - mlochbaum 4y ago
    I've talked to plenty of people whose eyes light up when you tell them 5 + 1 2 3 just works in the language. What you're saying is that you didn't find APL's value proposition attractive, and this is a fact about you, not APL.
    - gjulianm 4y ago
      > I've talked to plenty of people whose eyes light up when you tell them 5 + 1 2 3 just works in the language. This is literally "people who like it say they like it". It's like saying that the value proposition of Python is having list comprehension, when that's just syntactic sugar. And no, it's not just me, you just have to take a look at the comments or even the OP. The only point being made is that it has very powerful array programming primitives, but those functions can be easily brought to other languages (and indeed a lot of them have those primitives).
jodrellblank 4y ago
> It's easier to read "mod(1, 3)" than "1 % 3". Why is it? You're assuming that I know what "mod" means, what the parens and comma signify (and perhaps what the lack of space in mod( but the presense of space after the comma indicate). If I didn't know those thing, they aren't at all readable and there's no way to guess. Wouldn't it be "1 modulo 3" for readability? Look at beginners in various languages posting on the internet asking what the different parens, braces and brackets do and when to use them. And then you're assuming that I don't know %, which because it's so common in C-like languages, I do, but if I didn't the glyph looks like division. NB. that mod() implies modulus and % is remainder, and "rem" is even worse because it looks like BASIC's "remark" comment word. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13683563/whats-the-difference-between-mod-and-remainder https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13683563/whats-the-diffe... It's easier to read "(AA|AB)([0-9A-F]{7,10})ZZ" than to write that regex in a flowchart of if/else branches and string and state manipulation. And easier to verify it's correct. Just because you can write unreadably hideously long regexes doesn't mean regexes should be shunned for unreadability, for a range of patterns they are usable, convenient and powerful. > "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." I'm not sure they have one in the large scale; I would like one as a rectangular-pattern-regex inside another language or shell because of the notation, and not in the sense that "you can do the same thing with numpy". I can write text search in Java, I'd rather use grep.

schwartzworld 4y ago

> because symbols are a readability problem I think the difficulty of this is overstated. My kids are learning to read Armenian and English at the same time. 38 Armenian letters + 26 English ones, each with upper and lowercase versions. If a 6 year old can do it, you can learn a couple of new glyphs when programming. > 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. It's a little disingenuous to claim that something you've never tried to do is too hard and has no value. > Does the language incentivize the creation of easily understandable, fixable functions? Lol, that is literally the point of them. I've been really enjoying https://www.arraycast.com/ https://www.arraycast.com/ in which enthusiasts from several different Iversonian Array languages talk about how array languages enable them to solve problems differently.

gjulianm 4y ago
> I think the difficulty of this is overstated. I have my degree in mathematics and I've used my fair share of symbols. It's been a consistent finding in articles, books, classes and peer conversations that symbols are not that optimal. Inventing new symbols, or overusing them is frowned upon because they don't really make things easier to understand and can sometimes be a cause of confusion. > It's a little disingenuous to claim that something you've never tried to do is too hard and has no value. I'm not saying "it has no value", I'm saying that I've never seen a good argument to actually invest time in them. As I explained, other languages have clear value propositions. In J/K/Q/APL , the value proposition tends to be a vague "I like it" from people who like it. > Lol, that is literally the point of them Yes, 2_&{&/x!/:2_!x}'!R is very understandable. > I've been really enjoying https://www.arraycast.com/ https://www.arraycast.com/ Offtopic, but I really dislike how so many information out there is the inaccesible format that is "podcasts".
- schwartzworld 4y ago
  > Yes, 2_&{&/x!/:2_!x}'!R is very understandable. Just as much so as սուրճ or コーヒー or קפה. > Offtopic, but I really dislike how so many information out there is the inaccesible format that is "podcasts". I can't think of a better format for what they are trying to do with the ArrayCast. It's not teaching people array programming, just a conversation between people who are proficient in it. What do you think makes podcasts inaccessible? For example, I often recommend https://soundcloud.com/lambda-cast https://soundcloud.com/lambda-cast to developers looking to understand functional programming. The conversational approach works well because some of the panelists are being taught these concepts for the first time and they ask great questions. There are plenty of books and articles on the subject, but conversational audio is a wonderful supplement.
  - gjulianm 4y ago
    > Just as much so as սուրճ or コーヒー or קפה. But far less than the equivalent code in, say, Python, or C, or any other language. That's the point. > What do you think makes podcasts inaccessible? Lack of visible, searchable structure and the requirement of audio (in those that don't have transcripts, which is a lot of them) to get the information.

mlochbaum 4y ago

APL is pretty big on immutability and pure functions too. Arrays are immutable, period, and the link below has John Scholes talking about the advantages of declarative programming back in 2005. And, uh, yes, APL tells you where the error is when you get one. It's pretty obvious you've bounced off due to a surface-level dislike for the syntax and are guessing about any other features it may have. https://www.dyalog.com/uploads/documents/Papers/declarative_prog.pdf https://www.dyalog.com/uploads/documents/Papers/declarative_...

gjulianm 4y ago
> It's pretty obvious you've bounced off due to a surface-level dislike for the syntax and are guessing about any other features it may have. I'm not saying APL doesn't have those features. I'm making examples of languages that have a clear value proposition. If APL is big on immutability and pure functions, then why use APL vs, say, Haskell or Clojure? Same with the "where is the error thing", I was explaining why maintenance isn't just a "depends on who maintains it" thing, in fact the example languages were assembly and Python, nothing to do with APL.
- mlochbaum 4y ago
  I've talked to plenty of people whose eyes light up when you tell them 5 + 1 2 3 just works in the language. What you're saying is that you didn't find APL's value proposition attractive, and this is a fact about you, not APL.
  - gjulianm 4y ago
    > I've talked to plenty of people whose eyes light up when you tell them 5 + 1 2 3 just works in the language. This is literally "people who like it say they like it". It's like saying that the value proposition of Python is having list comprehension, when that's just syntactic sugar. And no, it's not just me, you just have to take a look at the comments or even the OP. The only point being made is that it has very powerful array programming primitives, but those functions can be easily brought to other languages (and indeed a lot of them have those primitives).

jodrellblank 4y ago

> It's easier to read "mod(1, 3)" than "1 % 3". Why is it? You're assuming that I know what "mod" means, what the parens and comma signify (and perhaps what the lack of space in mod( but the presense of space after the comma indicate). If I didn't know those thing, they aren't at all readable and there's no way to guess. Wouldn't it be "1 modulo 3" for readability? Look at beginners in various languages posting on the internet asking what the different parens, braces and brackets do and when to use them. And then you're assuming that I don't know %, which because it's so common in C-like languages, I do, but if I didn't the glyph looks like division. NB. that mod() implies modulus and % is remainder, and "rem" is even worse because it looks like BASIC's "remark" comment word. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13683563/whats-the-difference-between-mod-and-remainder https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13683563/whats-the-diffe... It's easier to read "(AA|AB)([0-9A-F]{7,10})ZZ" than to write that regex in a flowchart of if/else branches and string and state manipulation. And easier to verify it's correct. Just because you can write unreadably hideously long regexes doesn't mean regexes should be shunned for unreadability, for a range of patterns they are usable, convenient and powerful. > "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." I'm not sure they have one in the large scale; I would like one as a rectangular-pattern-regex inside another language or shell because of the notation, and not in the sense that "you can do the same thing with numpy". I can write text search in Java, I'd rather use grep.