RE: +=

["Stefano Lanzavecchia" <stf@...>]

> Only a nightmare to read in the sense that any new writing
> system is; once
> you've learned it, it's a lot quicker (I understand) than reading an
> ordinary program, since it's so much briefer and more
> expressive for a wide
> range of mathematical operations.

It is, I can confirm, having being an APLer for years now. It's much easier
to read a program which fits in two lines (no obscuring involved) than a
program spread on several pages of verbose code.

> This is an advantage over J and K, APL-derived languages that
> use ASCII. On
> the other hand, they don't need special fonts or keyboard stickers...

Well, the debate on whether J's ASCII combinations are easier to understand
than APL's symbols will continue forever. The one sure thing is that J is
easier to exchange because it's ASCII based, but the fact that many of the
symbols are two characters combinations, which make it look like cartoon
swearing, makes it also rather difficult to read.

Example:

   cmp1=: {.@(\:|)@:(*@-)

is a valid J's function definition (similar to C's strcmp but for arrays of
numbers instead of strings). Notice in particular "{." which is a single
primitive, different from "{", also different from "{:", in the same way "@"
is different from "@.", also different from "@:"... Spaces are not required
because there are no ambiguities. For a computer parser, maybe.


On the other hand, I never needed stickers for my APL keyboard. I just
learnt the position of all the symbols. It's easier than one would think.

Sorry for the off-topic, by the way.
--
WildHeart'2k1 - mailto:stf@apl.it
Homepage: http://come.to/wildheart/

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