APL was the first actual interactive language that I had the pleasure of using. It sure beat card readers!
SmallTalk was fun in that once programmers made the conceptual jump to objects, they really enjoyed programming in it. Maybe it was the sparsity of the language as compared to C++ that made it more congenial to program in. There were just fewer trapdoors to step over (or fall through) on the path to mastery. Having taught both languages (SmallTalk, C++) I’d rather teach SmallTalk. . . . bob > On Jul 13, 2015, at 4:33 PM, Owen Densmore <o...@backspaces.net> wrote: > > I programmed in APL while at Xerox in the 70's. Although "dangerous" it was > really fast to program in, especially as a domain specific language, so to > speak. It got so that if you couldn't do a one-liner for anything you wanted > to do, you'd be disappointed! > > Interestingly enough, it was the Finance dept of Xerox that first started > using it, and then it leaked into the labs where it went viral. > > SmallTalk was sorta the same, really great but hard to deploy initially, but > really loved in the labs. > > -- Owen > > On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 3:19 PM, Parks, Raymond <rcpa...@sandia.gov > <mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov>> wrote: > It's analagous to pets - you raise them (sometimes) from bottle-feeding and > they live to old age - and they die long before you are ready. Sure, there > are the occasional turtles and parrots that outlive their owners - COBOL has > long outlived Grace Hopper - but most computer languages come and go within > their authors and certainly users professional lifetimes. Sometimes you > babysit somebody else's pet while they're on vacation or something - the > other thread on the cube comic points this out - only a few of us have ever > worked with SNOBOL (and we probably didn't like it that much). I started > with Algol, moved on to COBOL, assembled various flavours, did some Fortran > (various flavours), then CMS II (a regression), C, C++, Java (swore at > Grady), and then a succession of scripting languages (none of which have > stuck). My strangest language experience was A Programming Language (APL) - > oh the damage one can do in almost no code. > > Ray Parks > Consilient Heuristician/IDART Old-Timer > V: 505-844-4024 <tel:505-844-4024> M: 505-238-9359 <tel:505-238-9359> P: > 505-951-6084 <tel:505-951-6084> > NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov <mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov> > SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov <mailto:rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov> > (send NIPR reminder) > JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov <mailto:dopa...@doe.ic.gov> (send NIPR reminder) > > > > On Jul 11, 2015, at 8:41 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > >> This is sorta sad: >> https://github.com/NetLogo/NetLogo/wiki/Applets >> <https://github.com/NetLogo/NetLogo/wiki/Applets> >> Applets: They're dead Jim. >> >> Sad mainly from a history standpoint: Java built a really fascinating cross >> platform, VM based, language & libraries. >> >> JS is now the current winner. But then, there's Web Assembly which will >> provide a path for all languages to replace JS in the browser and in Node.js. >> >> Sigh. >> >> -- Owen >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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