Terrence Brannon wrote:
Is anyone here contemplating entering this? I would like to see a J entry
this year:
FYI http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/pousse.htm
<quote>
The J team won the Judge's Prize in the ICFP'98 Functional Programming Contest.
Here are the judges' comments on the J program:
The contest judges selected the J program because we felt it was the most
thought-provoking entry. In brief, it is everything the number one Cilk Pousse
entry is not:
*
It is not parallel.
*
It is not even compiled -- it ran on a simple interpreter.
Note that J's aggregate-data operators tend to keep execution in the
"leaf" primitives of the program, so this is rather more efficient than one
might imagine.
*
It is astoundingly brief.
Not including comments and test-case "dead code," the J entry is 113
lines of code.
*
It is extremely functional.
There is only one one loop in the whole program. J syntax allows
operators such as addition to be transparently "lifted" to function domains.
And yet the J entry proceeded to beat 17 compiled C entries, which we view as at
least a partial testament to the productivity gains of working with a powerful
notation (and a partial testament to the skill and expertise of the isi team
members, of course).
We felt there were several lessons in the J entry for the programming community.
Like the other two prize-winners, it is a strong statement.
Congratulations to the isi team! Without a doubt, "a bunch of extremely cool
hackers" -- and an extremely cool programming language.
<endquote>
--
regards,
bill
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