Thursday, March 04, 2004

Verison 0.2, of UnCommon Web has been released. UnCommon Web is a continuation based web framework for Common Lisp. The announcement contains the list of new features. 2:11:46 PM

Vector Online, a weblog with content related to array oriented languages like APL, J and K. About ten years ago I used to use a system written in APL. No one in the company knew anything about the language, the original author having left, and the company that hosted the system only had one machine with an APL keyboard which they were phasing out and no longer wanted to support. I made an effort to learn the language and was able to extend it and eventually port it to another language and system. As a user of the system I didn't appreciate the power of array oriented languages. While doing the port to another language I soon learnt how very useful they can be for what they were designed for. Working through the tutorials for J from J Software gives you a good idea of that. Unfortunately, unless you're using it on a day to day basis it can seem very much like a write-only language. The terse syntax can be hard to get back into after a break. 1:45:39 PM