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

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.