I simply got hooked. Someone showed me, way back then, q’s ancestor language APL, and I never really wanted to write code any other way. I’ve learned other languages since. Many of them have array methods; many of them clearly derive from or were influenced by Iverson’s creation, but the family of Iversonian languages – APL, A+, J, k, q and others – seem to do it right. Decades now down the track, everything else still feels like typing with my elbows.
So what is it? What distinguishes Iversonian languages from other languages that do arrays?
That was the topic for one of the liveliest ArrayCast episodes yet. Some improbable positions got explored. Do k and q actually qualify as Iversonian? Or for that matter – does the original Iverson Notation?
Hear all about it in episode 39 of the ArrayCast.
