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What does ⍋⍋ even mean? (2023)

blog.wilsonb.com

43 points by tosh a month ago · 21 comments

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magicalhippo 23 days ago

I see weird symbols like that I think APL. I haven't touched APL but I know weird symbols when I see it.

And checking the article... Tags: apl

cocodill 23 days ago

Aren't those the Twin Pines from Back to the Future?

Qem 23 days ago

Appears like the twin pines cooperativism symbol.

semiquaver 23 days ago

What does [APL] even mean?

  • dbt00 23 days ago

    an obscure but very powerful matrix-centered programming language usually considered to be "write only", as in impossible to read what someone else wrote.

    • kcroarkin 23 days ago

      Find the "write only" comments you commonly see online to be untrue. I have been writing a voxel game in majority APL code for the past 6 months. I have been able to read my own code and refactor stuff I've written months ago fine while also integrating code from other APL codebases and suggestions from other people. It just has a higher learning curve to understand.

    • bossyTeacher 23 days ago

      > as in impossible to read what someone else wrote.

      Can you even read what you wrote several years ago?

      • dylan604 23 days ago

        Wait, isn't that what they say about perl?

        • philipov 23 days ago

          Yes, perl is considered write-only because it is a mess of features that allow unhygienic programming habits to flourish - it is full of hard-to-trace magical behavior. Completely different than APL, which has had perl's write-only label applied to it by programmers not used to reading terse mathematical notation.

        • happymellon 23 days ago

          They say the same about RegEx too.

      • gerdesj 23 days ago

        40 years ago (at school) I generally wrote in ink - edged and straight nibs, blue and black ink because I liked it. I learned several formal styles as well as my idiosyncratic efforts. I did have biros and fibre tips etc available. I had loads of choice. My parent's generation was probably the last of the ink and nib first users.

    • groby_b 23 days ago

      Very much not.

      Its origin is as a mathematical notation for algorithms. It was used to publish research reports and (IIRC) a book or two.

      You're confusing "possible to read" with "accessible to people unwilling to invest any effort understanding"

    • jonahx 23 days ago

      > usually considered to be "write only"

      Only by the ignorant and uninitiated.

  • zem 23 days ago

    "a programming language".

    • philipov 23 days ago

      Not to be confused with b programming language, which is not its succesor, but is the predecessor to c.

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