Did the above code snippet remind you of APL or was it something else? This is actually a bit of an important "research" oriented question to me and is actually relevant to the design of the Co-dfns compiler.
Remember I said I don't do APL. It reminded me of things I've seen in APL-oriented submissions or comments. All of it looked equally ugly to the uninitiated. The main point is that I couldn't tell the difference between a bad or good example since I don't do APL. So, dang's point stands that we shouldn't be quick to dismiss it without evidence it's bad. That's a decent point in general but especially for stuff really outside the norm such as APL-derived languages.
So, as I mention above, part of the intentional design of that code snippet is to "feel" like APL. The fact that you went to that somehow is a good thing, actually. While it might have seemed as equally ugly, if it felt in the same "class" as APL, that's at least in the right direction, because as a part of the design of the style of this code, it is to mirror the semantic and stylistic densities of APL to improve the reading transition between APL code and C-style code.
