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From: darryl@ism780.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: APL myths - (nf)
Message-ID: <270@ism780.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Jun-84 00:04:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780.270
Posted: Thu Jun 28 00:04:39 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Jun-84 06:56:04 EDT
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#R:decwrl:-198200:ism780:14700004:000:870
ism780!darryl    Jun 26 20:01:00 1984

I must agree that one reads APL differently than most procedural languages.
However, the multitude of symbols can be confusing even when you (think)
you know what you are doing.  For example...  I once programmed John
Conway's "life" in APL.  In most procedural languages, one tries
to be very careful about the bookkeeping because the vanilla algorithm
can run into n^2 time.  No such worries in APL.  Four lines of code was
all (it can be done in less, of course).  The problem was, all I got
was "VALUE ERROR" after the first generation.  A friend, in no way involved
in programming, happened to come by after I had torn my hair out and asked
what my dilema was.  I showed him the "gibberish" and he looked at it for
a couple of seconds.  Then he pointed into the middle of it and said
"Is that a zero or an oh?"

	    --Darryl Richman
	    ...!cca!ima!ism780!darryl