[self-interest] APL class projects (was: Please help with SELF installation)

Casey Ransberger casey.obrien.r at gmail.com
Thu Feb 17 16:35:07 UTC 2011


In linguistics there was a longstanding debate about whether or not the languages one spoke affected what sorts of thoughts were available to one; it was a big theme in Orwell's 1984, for example. 

Before Ruby and then Smalltalk, (until Ruby I hadn't really looked at any functional programming seriously,) I wouldn't know how to use a closure. I might not even have known the term. 

In general it seems that linguists have largely abandoned this notion, but it sure does seem pertinent to programming, doesn't it?

On Feb 17, 2011, at 6:27 AM, Michael Latta <lattam at mac.com> wrote:

> I agree. The language you use has a huge impact on how you approach a problem. In college we had a course that exposed us to 10 languages for that very point. The programmers that have only used one language are crippled in many ways. 
> 
> Michael
> 
> On Feb 17, 2011, at 7:03 AM, "Jecel Assumpcao Jr." <jecel at merlintec.com> wrote:
> 
> > I was taking a class once and the teacher proposed a problem where you
> > had to number the squares in a crossword puzzle. Only squares which were
> > the start of two or more horizontal or vertical spaces were to be
> > numbered.
> > 
> > She called me to the blackboard and told be to start drawing an NS chart
> > (http://www.hit.ac.il/staff/leonidm/information-systems/ch56.html) and I
> > said we first had to decide what language the program would be written
> > in. She claimed that the language you use has no effect on how you think
> > about the problem, and in this case there would always be three nested
> > loops. That is not something you should ever say to me :-) I told her
> > that if I used APL there would be no loops. So she said the language
> > would be Pascal and I finished the program for her.
> > 
> > The following class I have her the APL version as a present. I could
> > have written it in one line, but did it in four instead to make it more
> > readable :-)
> > 
> > -- Jecel
> > 
> > David Harris wrote on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:37:37 -0800
> >> 
> >> I did LU decomposition and backward substitution in two lines of APL.
> >> Oh, and TicTacToe in two lines as well, as I recall. Of course they weren't
> >> terribly understandable :-) That was back when we had a IBM370/145
> >> with APL microcode, and Selectric terminals --- ah, the good ol' days. 
> >> David
> >> 
> >> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Michael Latta wrote:
> >> 
> >> I did a full z80 simulator and console in APL in 11 pages of loosely
> >> formatted code. For some tasks it is very effective. 
> >> 
> >> Michael
> >> On Feb 16, 2011, at 5:00 PM, Casey Ransberger wrote:
> >> 
> >> I think I saw a talk on YouTube where someone aced a project that
> >> way. Used APL too if I remember right. Think they guy's name was
> >> David something or other?
> >> 
> >> On Feb 9, 2011, at 3:35 PM, ungar wrote:
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Can't help you too much, but if you want to be clever, write it in a
> >> dynamic language like APL or Smalltalk! (Or Lisp...)
> >> - David
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > ------------------------------------
> > 
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
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