* * * * *
It's all Greek to me
I knew APL (A Programming Language) [1] is terse and incomprehensible, but
seeing Conway's Game of Life [2] in APL was mindblowing [3] (link via Hacker
News [4]):
> life ← { ⊃ 1 ω ∨ . ∧ 3 4 = +/ +⌿ 1 0 ‾1 ∘.θ 1 - ‾1 Φ″ ⊂ ω }
>
(I think that's close—it was hard to find the right symbols) Yes, that really
does calculate a single generation. To run multiple generations was one
additional line of code:
> {} { pic∘ ← '⋅☻'[ω] ◊ _←[]dl ÷8 ◊ life ω } ★≡ RR
>
I remember years ago at a ham fest I was on the lookout for IBM keyboards [5]
(the only true keyboard, mind you) and I missed picking up an honest-to-god
IBM APL keyboard by just seconds—a friend I was with got to it before I did
(grrrrrrrr, and at $5, it was certainly a steal [6]).
[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)
[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life
[3]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=a9xAKttWgP4&fmt=18
[4]
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1041500
[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard
[6]
http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/adcolkey.html
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