http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/perlis78.htm
Some excerpts: A second precious property I’ve found, with respect to APL, is the term that I’ve used in that little article that was printed in SIAM NEWS — the word “lyrical”. I find that programming APL is fun. It’s charming. It’s pleasant. I find that programming is no longer a chore, and one of the reasons it’s not is the fact that there are always so many choices available to me. Whereas, the people in structured programming tell me if you put enough structure in programs, everybody in the room here will write the same ALGOL program or PASCAL program. Thus, it’s going to be easier to read — but also dull. God made us all different. No two of our minds work exactly alike, and one of the great powers of English is that those of us who learn to sharpen our wits on it, and use it properly, can say things differently from other people. And hence, it’s a pleasure to read English when it’s written by someone who has that talent. The other day I was reading a newspaper, an article by somebody in the arts who said if Shakespeare were alive today he’d be writing for TV. And I said to myself when I read that, “Not so. If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be a programmer, and he’d be writing one-liners in APL.” ... I know there are many criticisms of the one-liner syndrome. Phil Abrams has used the phrase “APL Pornography”. But as we all know, being people of the world, pornography thrives! And it thrives not because we’re evil, but because we’re human. And similarly, one-liners will thrive, no matter what label we stick on them, because the language APL is an invitation to create one-liners, and there is no better way to learn or appreciate that language than to write them. Indeed, APL, I believe, can only be learned by writing one-liners — only by seeing in a sense, what you can compress into a line. After awhile, of course, you become more urbane, more weary of the world, and you begin to write little short things like i=3 and so forth. But at least in the first flush of enthusiam, one appreciates the language best by writing one-liners. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
