4 ms·

My only "denial" when encountering high-church array languages is to deny them the precious brain space required to memorize their line noise syntax in order to

by msla 2y ago

My only "denial" when encountering high-church array languages is to deny them the precious brain space required to memorize their line noise syntax in order to be able to read them without a high ratio of comments to code. They're (poorly) aping mathematical notation without the properties that give actual notations their power to augment thought using symbolic manipulation, but the people writing code in such languages don't see the need to write like mathematicians; to wit, they don't write mostly in English and save their code snippets for apposite moments when they would illuminate as opposed to obscure. Haskell programmers at least have the taste to use names in their code.

joelignaatius 2y ago
[dead]
mikrl 2y ago
Most programming languages exist just because devs would rather write 1000 lines of spaghetti than see 7 ‘)’s at the end of a 100 line lisp program. /s
- sdwr 2y ago
  There's comfort in settling for mediocrity. Muddling through at your own pace instead of grasping for the ideal.
082349872349872 2y ago
> don't see the need to write like mathematicians Counterexample: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1283920.1283935 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1283920.1283935 (the 1979 Turing Award Lecture) Counterexample: https://dfns.dyalog.com/max_impln.htm https://dfns.dyalog.com/max_impln.htm
mhuffman 2y ago
>They're (poorly) aping mathematical notation without the properties that give actual notations their power to augment thought using symbolic manipulation Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with that. Both of these are some of the most eye-popping books I have ever read related to math and computing [0] [1] (note, both pdf files) Both are well-written (by the guy that created both APL and J) in extremely approachable language and the introduction of J into the mix is almost obvious compared to doing some of the common operations in any other non-array language. These two documents and Joe Armstrong's PhD thesis were ones that really made me "think different" about programming. [0]https://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/arithmetic.pdf https://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/arithmetic.pdf [1]https://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/calculus.pdf https://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/calculus.pdf
- msla 2y ago
  The whole point of mathematical notation is to ease the cognitive burden by making certain things more automatic via symbol-shuffling: We don't need to think too hard about solving an algebra problem because we can shuffle symbols around and be assured that the result is valid. I've never seen APL or any other array language used that way, even though it's the only thing that could possibly justify their pathological terseness.

by msla 2y ago

joelignaatius 2y ago

[dead]

mikrl 2y ago

Most programming languages exist just because devs would rather write 1000 lines of spaghetti than see 7 ‘)’s at the end of a 100 line lisp program. /s

sdwr 2y ago
There's comfort in settling for mediocrity. Muddling through at your own pace instead of grasping for the ideal.

082349872349872 2y ago

> don't see the need to write like mathematicians Counterexample: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1283920.1283935 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1283920.1283935 (the 1979 Turing Award Lecture) Counterexample: https://dfns.dyalog.com/max_impln.htm https://dfns.dyalog.com/max_impln.htm

mhuffman 2y ago

>They're (poorly) aping mathematical notation without the properties that give actual notations their power to augment thought using symbolic manipulation Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with that. Both of these are some of the most eye-popping books I have ever read related to math and computing [0] [1] (note, both pdf files) Both are well-written (by the guy that created both APL and J) in extremely approachable language and the introduction of J into the mix is almost obvious compared to doing some of the common operations in any other non-array language. These two documents and Joe Armstrong's PhD thesis were ones that really made me "think different" about programming. [0]https://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/arithmetic.pdf https://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/arithmetic.pdf [1]https://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/calculus.pdf https://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/calculus.pdf

msla 2y ago
The whole point of mathematical notation is to ease the cognitive burden by making certain things more automatic via symbol-shuffling: We don't need to think too hard about solving an algebra problem because we can shuffle symbols around and be assured that the result is valid. I've never seen APL or any other array language used that way, even though it's the only thing that could possibly justify their pathological terseness.