Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!jtsv16!blister!itcyyz!yrloc!rbe From: rbe@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM (Robert Bernecky) Subject: Re: Write-only languages (was Re: scheme) Message-ID: <1991Jun19.152531.3889@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM> Reply-To: rbe@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM (Robert Bernecky) Organization: Snake Island Research Inc, Toronto References: <56569@nigel.ee.udel.edu> Date: Wed, 19 Jun 91 15:25:31 GMT In article <56569@nigel.ee.udel.edu> new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) writes: > >>Hardly true of Scheme/Lisp. The only language that might be truly >>said to possess this characteristic is APL, and only because of its >>infernal character set. (Because of this, APL is the one language >>I've encountered in my life that I've never _wanted_ to master.) >>Substituting each APL operator with a descriptive name would certainly >>go a long way towards making it less of a "write-only" language. Easily done: A number of workers in APL design have come up with a new dialect of APL known as J. J has the following characteristics: a. Use of ASCII, rather than APL symbols, thereby ending the tyranny of the keyboard/printer. b. Simplified syntax and semantics -- a lot of the old rough edges which crept into APL have been removed, such as funnies with square brackets. c. First-classness of objects. d. New versions of J include control structures for DO UNTIL, CASE, Recursion, as well as generalized reductions. This will appear in "Gerunds and Representations", in press - ACM SIGAPL APL91 proceedings, R. Hui and R. Bernecky. e. ABility to call J from C and vice versa. Articles on J appear in APL90 (Hui, Iverson, et al), recent issues of SIGAPL Quote Quad, Vector(British APL Society), and in an article which appeared in SIGPLAN Notices Feb 1991: "Fortran 90 Arrays", by yrs trly. J is available as shareware through a number of bulletin boards (watserv1 is one of them), and from Iverson Software Inc, 33 Major St. Toronto. ($24 for the pc version. Not sure about other versions). Regarding Character Set Theology: See my article in SIGAPL Quote Quad, Septmber 1990: "Quad av considered Harmful -- still". ps: These articles all have the WRRONG email address for me, due to my inability to type. See below for the correct one(s). the rbe@yrloc... is preferred. Robert Bernecky rbe@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.com bernecky@itrchq.itrc.on.ca Snake Island Research Inc (416) 368-6944 FAX: (416) 360-4694 18 Fifth Street, Ward's Island Toronto, Ontario M5J 2B9 Canada