Everyone should read "Notation as a Tool of Thought" by Iverson: http://www.jdl.... | Hacker News

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jasonwatkinspdx on June 5, 2012 | parent | context | favorite | on: Why APL Is Still Cool

Everyone should read "Notation as a Tool of Thought" by Iverson:

http://www.jdl.ac.cn/turing/pdf/p444-iverson.pdf

APL was originally designed as a uniform mathematical notation. It was only implemented as a programming language some time later. I don't think classic APL has a future, but there are ideas there worth learning.

protomyth on June 5, 2012 | [–]

another link if the original doesn't work for you: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.94.4...

agumonkey on June 5, 2012 | [–]

Strongly reminiscent of Lisp. Wishful ideas brought to reality.

jasonwatkinspdx on June 6, 2012 | [–]

I think we need more of this. Crazy niche languages that are unafraid and unashamed of to be ambitious and novel in paradigm.

We have plenty of choices for minor syntax tweaks or extensions of OO and ML. We need to get brave again.

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