Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mingpan 4905 days ago
I'm curious why they chose those particular syntax and operator naming conventions. Of course, syntax is superficial to some extent, but this seems a bit extreme.
1 comments

If you're referring to the language, it's derived from J, which is derived from APL. There's a whole philosophy underlying this terseness, which is basically but probably inadequately represented as: mathematical notation isn't designed for amateur readability, it's designed as a tool for the mind of the working mathematician, so it doesn't need to be all that approachable to the newcomer.
> it's derived from J, which is derived from APL

Q is derived from K (it's a thin wrapper that uses words instead of sigils for some verbs), which is derived from APL; J is a completely separate lineage, also based on APL.

Yes! Also, interestingly Arthur Whitney created the initial one page fragment that started Roger Hui on J

http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Essays/Incunabulum

http://keiapl.org/rhui/remember.htm

Brain fart. I was learning J but yes, it's K not J.