Stages of denial in encountering K

Post by brazzy » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 9:04 AM UTC

kick wrote: post #104

brazzy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With 5 to 10 lines of comment per one line of code, it starts to become readable. You're still left constantly wondering "what do a and x mean in this context, again?" 3/10, would definitely not want to use for any kind of real work.

John Earnest links to his tutorial in the Stages of Denial post; if you click it and give it a read, you'll probably understand much easier. But you shouldn't feel pressured to use k: people who advocate for k play the role of a Cassandra who can drown her tears in dollar bills.

Post by loeg » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 9:06 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #111

duchenne wrote: post #25

> +/!10 I personally find the given example harder to read than the equivalent in python/matlab/javascript with lodash/probably many other languages sum(range(10)) sum(1:10) With "K", you have to know a few new conventions. In the second case you just have to read, and the data flow is more obvious.

Yes, but as you multiply that difference 100 or 1000, the advantages of the concise notation become obvious.

Post by bori5 » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 9:07 AM UTC

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 9:09 AM UTC

bartread wrote: post #90

Drakar1903 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what - I presume - is their implementation of sending an e-mail E:[u:();e:{a::?[a;x;y];J( x)+#y};cz:{$[#u;e/_`u;]};kx:{u,:,(j,j+#x; k_a);e[k]x};kb:{$[=/k;J j-1 0;];kx""};cx:{kx cc`};cv:{kx@9'`}] A:[w::_W%F;j:: k;k:0 0;J:{k::2#0|x&#a};lx:{J j+x};y::V+F 0,j;z::1'(V;w[1]$a)],E U:{(`Z,'!Z).'+x};V:0;i:0;I::`Z,(!Z)(#Z)!i;y:{I .`y};zf:{$[`kt= x;i+:1;^`W`F? x;I . x;. x]};u::F[0] !#Z;W:{U`V,,u,'0;U`W,,(-':1_u, x),'x 1…

I tend to agree: falls into the category of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should." Actually, that's perhaps a bit harsh. I have some pretty obscure hobbies, and there's certainly nothing wrong with doing this sort of thing if you want to. Still, having done so it's a bit rich to then look askance at the rest of us like we're all idiots for not choosing to go down a similar route with our own systems.

Post by pwdisswordfish2 » Mon, Mar 09, 2020, 9:16 AM UTC

goto11 wrote: post #136

dang wrote: post #107

A million-line program isn't readable by anybody, no matter how readable the language is. If the equivalent program can be written in, say, a thousand lines in some more concise language, that's more than worth the learning curve, even if the language is strange and off-putting.

I doubt that K can reduce line count by a factor 1000 though. The examples in the article is mostly about shorter identifiers like "!" instead of "range" and a compact notation. That is perhaps a factor 5 not a factor 1000. The example with a for-loop for summing a range is a blatant strawman. In which modern language would that be idiomatic? Furthermore the examples only show a particular use case: Processing lists…