[jacquesm]

The easiest way for non-APL programmers to begin to understand APL is to see what it hasn't got: boilerplate and loops. If you discard those from any other programming text you're left with the essence of what the code does. APL is only explicit about that essence, the rest is inferred by the interpreter. That's why it is so compact and that's why if you're used to step-by-step instructions with a ton of air in between you will initially find it hard to read. But that gets easier over time and before you know it you'll think of other languages as hopelessly verbose.