Re: Improvements to gnuapl

[Dr . Jürgen Sauermann]

    Hi Christian,
      
      I can't quite follow the argument that :IF/:ELSE etc. makes it
      easier for
      newcomers to learn APL. If I remember my learning of APL some
      decades
      ago correctly, then, coming straight from ALGOL and BASIC as my
      first
      "high-level" languages, I was overwhelmed by the large number of
      symbols
      in APL. Adding even more alternatives (read :IF/:ELSE) to the
      existing
      concepts (read: →) would most likely have confused me as a
      newcomer
      more than it would have helped me.
      
      I would also argue that a newcomer should first learn the core
      concepts of a
      language before being distracted by the non-standard extensions of
      some
      language dialects.
    
    Best Regards,
    Jürgen

On 2/20/21 7:59 PM, Christian Robert wrote:

> well I
>       saw the new thrends aka Quad-XML, Quad-JSON, Quad-FFT and so on
>       
>       
>       but I think thoses will never be used in real life or quite
>       seldom.
>       
>       
>       I really think that Juergen should be looking at
>       
>       
>       :if/:elseif/:else/:endif
>       
>       
>       :for var :in array
>       
>         loop
>       
>       :endfor
>       
>       
>       :while condition:
>       
>         loop
>       
>       :endwhile
>       
>       
>       :do
>       
>         loop
>       
>       :until condition
>       
>       
>       this will eases newcommers to the language.
>       
>       
>       I know that APL goal is to do a whole "program" in one or two
>       lines of code...
>       
>       but the language must accomodate newcommers.
>       
>       
>       I asked for that several years ago (may me 8 or 10 years)
>       
>       
>       Juergen ansewered at that time "this can be done" but I wont yet
>       
>       
>       well my principal next improvements wish list is
>       if/for/while/do_until
>       
>       
>       my real though,
>       
>       
>       Xtian.
>       
>       
>