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Comment by celeduc | Hacker News Reader

C isn't very readable either which is why commenting is encouraged. But the Obfuscated C Contest is a competition whereas APL is literally the punchline for illegibility.

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As I asked in another thread about APL readability few weeks ago[1], would you be surprised to learn this is valid Dyalog APL?

    result←findMax data

    max←0
    :For i :In data
        :If i>max
            max←i
        :EndIf
    :EndFor

    result←max

then

          findMax 5 1 2 3 5 6 3 1
 
    6

Writing it more neatly as findMax←⌈/ isn't mandatory anymore than `reduce(max, numbers)` is mandatory in Python.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28092097

I'm not surprised at all. Good/bad, un/readable code can be produced in any language. Ruby fans crowed about its beauty then created incomprehensible DSLs of awkward Yoda code. But norms and values do differ between language communities, and APL is not exactly noted for a strict emphasis on readability.

The terseness of “vintage” APL is what makes it hard to read and reason about. This example highlights how a little less terse code can be much more readable.

But I remember what confused me the most was trying not to use loops to sum arrays and using vector ops like +/A

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