Alan Perlis on APL: A Late-Career Conversion from ALGOL to a More Expressive Language
By
tosh
Slow-proofed and worth the wait. Worth its weight in flour.
Summary
Professor Alan J. Perlis, a computer science pioneer and former ALGOL advocate, reflects on his late-in-life conversion to APL programming language. He draws an analogy comparing APL to French (expressive, concise, elegant) versus ALGOL-like languages to English (verbose, structured). The article explores the philosophy of language design, the nature of "almost perfect artifacts" that improve only in small ways, and the intellectual journey of adopting a radically different programming paradigm.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledI'm an apostate from ALGOL.
Like all people who enter interesting things late in life, one tends to go over one's head very quickly.
Almost Perfect Artifacts Improve only in Small Ways.
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