> Others say what APL needs is a little bit of Franglais, which in our terms is APLGOL. “If APL only had the while-statement, or the if-then-else, or the for-statement, it would become such a perfect language.” That’s ridiculous. And it’s silly to say that if APL had arrays of arrays, all of our troubles would disappears. In point of fact, what will happen is that the amount of troubles would just grow almost exponentially if that happened.
And it turns out that the troubles do not increase exponentially when you make some concessions. I think kdb+/q is a great middle-ground between APL/J and regular programming languages. Retains most of the good stuff, but is simpler to learn (no rank), and can be used in a functional or imperative style if desired.
One day, I think we'll realize that we're on the wrong path, and array languages will reign supreme. Until then I guess I'll have to suck it up and resign myself in dealing with the huge and inefficient monstrosities we software developers have created.
And it turns out that the troubles do not increase exponentially when you make some concessions. I think kdb+/q is a great middle-ground between APL/J and regular programming languages. Retains most of the good stuff, but is simpler to learn (no rank), and can be used in a functional or imperative style if desired.
One day, I think we'll realize that we're on the wrong path, and array languages will reign supreme. Until then I guess I'll have to suck it up and resign myself in dealing with the huge and inefficient monstrosities we software developers have created.