----- Original Message ----- From: "Ronn!Blankenship" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 12:25 PM Subject: Re: Computer Languages [was: Your Favorite SciFi/Fantasy Movie Soundtrack?]
> At 08:31 PM 2/28/03 -0500, Jim Sharkey wrote: > > >Ronn!Blankenship wrote: > > >Anyone want to comment here on APL? > > > >I was forced to take an APL course in college as part of NJIT's Statistics > >and Actuarial Science program at the time. I can't say that I remember > >much about it; it was an introductory course. I don't recall caring for > >it all that much. I seem to remember it was very...brief, for lack of a > >better word, at least compared to the other languages I had been exposed > >to, like Pascal, Fortran, and COBOL. > > > > "Concise," is how I have heard it described. >
Indecipherable.
But that's part of its appeal: to be able to write a working program which on paper looks like what would result if a cat walked across the math department's secretary's typewriter keyboard while she had the Symbol ball installed, or at best a typical page out of Whitehead and Russell's _Principia Mathematica_. IOW, one that no one else could possibly understand . . .
;-)
-- Ronn! :)
Almighty Ruler of the all, Whose Power extends to great and small, Who guides the stars with steadfast law, Whose least creation fills with awe, O grant thy mercy and thy grace, To those who venture into space.
(Robert A. Heinlein's added verse to the Navy Hymn)
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