From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 11390f,4c42ac518eba0bbe X-Google-Attributes: gid11390f,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,4c42ac518eba0bbe X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,4c42ac518eba0bbe X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,4c42ac518eba0bbe X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public From: John Sullivan Subject: Re: Programming language vote - results Date: 1997/10/16 Message-ID: <3gIvKGAfUmR0EwEl@yddraiggoch.demon.co.uk>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 281045251 References: <343fbb5a.0@news.iprolink.ch> <343FD05C.8986A557@flash.net> <34428914.2D71D0F@ibm.net> <01bcd87f$7fefcf00$25a43a91@basil.omroep.nl> <34458CE3.507C@dynamite.com.au> <3444BFC6.794BDF32@druid.net> <34466EB4.3381@dynamite.com.au> Distribution: world X-NNTP-Posting-Host: yddraiggoch.demon.co.uk [194.222.102.161] Organization: RTFM unincorporated Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.apl,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ Date: 1997-10-16T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <34466EB4.3381@dynamite.com.au>, Alan E & Carmel J Brain writes >D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote: >> >> Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote: >> > Every time someone says how terse and powerful C is, I think of APL. >> >> My favourite quote about APL - "I refuse to use any computer language >> in which the proponents shove snippets of code under each other's >> nose saying 'I bet you can't guess what this does!'" > >Trouble is, this is true. I wrote a security system that took a user >input, used it to write a program which when executed wrote another >program that modified the first program, exited, and the first program >then gave access to certain data. In 2 lines. Due to hardware >limitations, this 2-liner was impossible to make "hidden" so I made it >Cryptic, and self-modifying. 2 months later, even I couldn't figure out >exactly what it did. > You can do exactly the same thing in most other languages. I could write a book about the Fortran I've had to debug that was impenetrable. Stuff from reputable suppliers that came undebugged, with so many computed goto's that the diagrams I drew to try to see what was going on resembled spaghetti. So, why didn't you document your code when you wrote it? Don't blame APL for your own inadequacies. John Sullivan ------------- remove the dots from the first three (Welsh) words for my real address