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Kill it before it gets to the children! Just kidding. But taking a random collection of APL concepts and applying them to a graphical editor probably isn't th

Kill it before it gets to the children! Just kidding. But taking a random collection of APL concepts and applying them to a graphical editor probably isn't the recipe for success you may be thinking it is.

082349872349872 3y ago
Given that the Turing Lecture ( https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1283935&type=pdf https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1283935&type=pdf ) didn't have any appreciable impact (in the tradition of Backus' Turing Lecture) upon either industry or academia, I doubt there any recipes for success among the masses. But in the tradition of the Computer Science Logo Style series (which built up to things like toy pascal compilers and expert systems), I occasionally dream of learning enough Snap! to port Iverson's samples from this lecture...
- retrocryptid 3y ago
  Now I get to flip and take the other side, implying that APL is the best language in the world: I agree with Iverson that notation is important. Just look at Maxwell's Equations. There were 26 of them until Heavyside noticed they could be put into vector form and suddenly there were 4 (5 if you squint.) But yes, just because an approach is popular doesn't mean it's useful in all cases. Just look at Python. I was lucky enough to be able to talk with Doug Engelbart in the 2000's. One of the points he brought up, which was elaborated in Bardini's book about him, was the source of friction between him and Larry Tessler. Engelbart liked to emphasize functionality of notation (be it textual or graphical) over ease of learning. "If it was important, the users would take the time to learn it," is a paraphrase of what I think he was saying. Even when he was at SRI (before working on the Alto) Tessler was advocating for "easier to learn" abstractions. Where is the truth? Somewhere in the middle? Hard to say.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    As far as somewhere in the middle goes, I guess Englebart would think the violin worth learning, while Tessler would advocate for guitars (keytars?), but neither would go so far as to perform music with a vuvuzela? (where does Ableton Live fit into the metaphor above?)
    - retrocryptid 3y ago
      In this metaphor, Ableton Live would be bought by Gibson and immediately end of lifed.

082349872349872 3y ago

Given that the Turing Lecture ( https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1283935&type=pdf https://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1283935&type=pdf ) didn't have any appreciable impact (in the tradition of Backus' Turing Lecture) upon either industry or academia, I doubt there any recipes for success among the masses. But in the tradition of the Computer Science Logo Style series (which built up to things like toy pascal compilers and expert systems), I occasionally dream of learning enough Snap! to port Iverson's samples from this lecture...

retrocryptid 3y ago
Now I get to flip and take the other side, implying that APL is the best language in the world: I agree with Iverson that notation is important. Just look at Maxwell's Equations. There were 26 of them until Heavyside noticed they could be put into vector form and suddenly there were 4 (5 if you squint.) But yes, just because an approach is popular doesn't mean it's useful in all cases. Just look at Python. I was lucky enough to be able to talk with Doug Engelbart in the 2000's. One of the points he brought up, which was elaborated in Bardini's book about him, was the source of friction between him and Larry Tessler. Engelbart liked to emphasize functionality of notation (be it textual or graphical) over ease of learning. "If it was important, the users would take the time to learn it," is a paraphrase of what I think he was saying. Even when he was at SRI (before working on the Alto) Tessler was advocating for "easier to learn" abstractions. Where is the truth? Somewhere in the middle? Hard to say.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  As far as somewhere in the middle goes, I guess Englebart would think the violin worth learning, while Tessler would advocate for guitars (keytars?), but neither would go so far as to perform music with a vuvuzela? (where does Ableton Live fit into the metaphor above?)
  - retrocryptid 3y ago
    In this metaphor, Ableton Live would be bought by Gibson and immediately end of lifed.