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by dlsa 1479 days ago
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_%28programming_language%29

Here's their example:

The following expression sorts a list of strings by their lengths:

x@>#:'x

Ooooooookay. Personally, I recommend a lot of alcohol. This will be a very wild and geeky ride. Bring extra pizza.

2 comments

Personally, I recommend less alcohol.

Pronounced, this would be "x at grade-down of count of each x" - and indeed, in "q" (a syntactic sugar for K that uses words instead of symbols), this is almost how you would write it (rather: "x at downgrade count each x". It's basically algorithmic math notation: In math you say "b^2-4ac" rather than "b squared minus 4 times a times c". In K you say "x@>#:'x".

It's not just a matter of symbol/syntax familiarity - there's also idioms, etc. But the "scariness" is similar to the "scariness" of a language like Japanese or Arabic, which uses different graphic elements, syntax, vocabulary, and idioms. You might not like it, but it's not because there's something weird or wrong about it -- it's just foreign.

Sounds like a recipe for alcohol addiction and obesity. Otherwise maybe I'd try that. ;)