Perlis was an APL fan and had a great deal to say about APL programming (and by extension J programming).
- Perlis, A.J., *In Praise of APL: A Language for Lyrical Programming*, SIAM News, 1977-06. (http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/perlis77.htm) - Perlis, A.J., *Almost Perfect Artifacts Improve only in Small Ways: APL is more French than English*, APL78, 1978-03-29. ( http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/perlis78.htm) A quotation from the latter: 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.” On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 11:03 AM, Tom Szczesny <[email protected]> wrote: > Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to > be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap > bubble?<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanperlis177292.html> > Alan Perlis< > http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alanperlis177292.html> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
