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> APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of c

by ginko 13y ago

> APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums. - Edsger W. Dijkstra

jacques_chester 13y ago
You can find an acidic Dijkstra quote for every language of his time. Dijkstra, I think, viewed mere languages as an unhappy by-product of computer science and hankered to do it all with mathematics, actual utility be damned.
- gngeal 13y ago
  Alan Kay seems to think along similar (though not identical) lines these days. The sheer inertia of ordinary programming language implementations means that by the time you get to use it, you may realize that something "slightly different" would have been better, but you seldom have any other option than to "suck it up".
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    Economists have a term for it -- Path Dependence. Some decisions have a high enough reversal cost that they are in practice irreversible. This means that one's future decisions are dependent on historical decisions over which one might have had no control. In our case: once a technology is deeply rooted, it's hard to displace. More closely, the Rogers model of diffusion[2] has 5 factors of diffusion (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity/simplicity, trialability and observability). Generally even the most advantageous language transitions score well only in relative advantage. The other diffusion predictors are missing or weak. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
coldtea 13y ago
Dijkstra never had anything relevant or wise to say about any programming language (including the few he did like). In general, he was good at the math part of computer science, terrible at the computer part.

by ginko 13y ago

> APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums. - Edsger W. Dijkstra

jacques_chester 13y ago

You can find an acidic Dijkstra quote for every language of his time. Dijkstra, I think, viewed mere languages as an unhappy by-product of computer science and hankered to do it all with mathematics, actual utility be damned.

gngeal 13y ago
Alan Kay seems to think along similar (though not identical) lines these days. The sheer inertia of ordinary programming language implementations means that by the time you get to use it, you may realize that something "slightly different" would have been better, but you seldom have any other option than to "suck it up".
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  Economists have a term for it -- Path Dependence. Some decisions have a high enough reversal cost that they are in practice irreversible. This means that one's future decisions are dependent on historical decisions over which one might have had no control. In our case: once a technology is deeply rooted, it's hard to displace. More closely, the Rogers model of diffusion[2] has 5 factors of diffusion (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity/simplicity, trialability and observability). Generally even the most advantageous language transitions score well only in relative advantage. The other diffusion predictors are missing or weak. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

coldtea 13y ago

Dijkstra never had anything relevant or wise to say about any programming language (including the few he did like). In general, he was good at the math part of computer science, terrible at the computer part.