Functional Geekery Episode 64 - Alex Weiner

In this episode I talk with Alex Weiner. We talk his introduction to APL, comparison to Assembly and C programming, use in side projects to show examples of APL, discuss the power of APL, getting started with APL, and more.

Our Guest, Alex Weiner

@alexcweiner on Twitter
http://alexweiner.com/
alexweiner@alexweiner.com

Announcements

Compose Melbourne is a new functional programming conference focused on developing the community and bringing typed functional programming to a wider audience. Visit www.composeconference.org/ to find out more.

ElixirConf is taking place August 31st through September 2nd in Orlando, Florida. Visit http://www.elixirconf.com to register and find out more.

Full Stack Fest will be hold in Barcelona on September 5-9th. You can check out 2016.fullstackfest.com to find out more.

PWLConf 2016 is the first full-day Papers We Love conference, co-located with the preconference events at Strange Loop in Saint Louis, Missouri on September 15th. Keep an eye out for updates on pwlconf.org.

The Erlang User Conference is coming up in Stockholm, Sweden, the 6th through the 16th of September. Early Bird tickets are now available and get a 10% discount on the conference when you use the code: FunctionalGeekery10 when registering.

Lambda World will be taking place September 30th & October 1st, 2016. Lambda.World is the longest functional programming conference in Spain and Portugal and one of the biggest in Europe. Visit www.lambda.world to find out more and to register.

The 2016 edition of ScalaIO will take place in Lyon, France, on 27th and 28th of October. Visit http://scala.io/ for more information and to register.

CodeMesh is taking place the 3rd and 4th of November with tutorials on the 2nd of November. Tickets are available now, but they are going fast. Visit codemesh.io to register and submit your talk.

Scala Wave is coming up on the 25th and 26th of November in Gdańsk, Poland. Visit http://www.scalawave.io/ to find out more and sign up for their newsletter for updates.

Destination Code, a new unconference starting in Utah, is having its inaugural event this December. Visit http://www.destination.codes/ to find out more.

If you have a conference related to functional programming, contact me, and I will be happy to announce it.

Topics

About Alex
APL
Conway’s Game of Life in APL
A Programming Language
How Alex got into APL
Background in Electrical Engineering
Sticking to the classic math symbols
Math background of APL
Teaching Linear Algebra
“This should be writable on a whiteboard”
Learning APL from “masters” on the job
Similarities and differences between thinking in APL vs Assembly and C
Infix operators
“Already the math I knew”
Where APL is a benefit
Image Processing in APL
Parsing HTTP response in APL
Map and Each in APL
Max example – ⌈/ 1 7 3 9 2 5
Epsilon example – 3 5 7 9 10 ∊ 7
Various APL Examples
FizzBuzz example in APL
“What’s the qualities you want in this list”
What excites Alex about APL
How much does APL lead to complex solutions?
“You will meet all of us very quickly”
Resources for people to start learning APL
Dyalog
tryapl.org
Mastering Dyalog APL
J language
APL to J dictionary
GNU APL
J’s relation to APL
Dyalog ’16

As always, a giant Thank You goes to David Belcher for the logo design.