GitHub - lfnoise/sapf: Sound As Pure Form - a Forth-like language for audio synthesis using lazy lists and APL-like auto-mapping.
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Sound As Pure Form - a Forth-like language for audio synthesis using lazy lists and APL-like auto-mapping. - lfnoise/sapf
  • AndyOPMEnglish
    1·
    20 hours ago

    A bit from the readme appreciating concatenative programming:

    The Joy language introduced concatenative functional programming. This generally means a stack based virtual machine, and a program consisting of words which are functions taking an input stack and returning an output stack. The natural syntax that results is postfix. Over a very long time I have come to feel that syntax gets in between me and the power in a language. Postfix is the least syntax possible.

    There are several reasons I like the concatenative style of programming:

    • Function composition is concatenation.

    • Pipelining values through functions to get new values is the most natural idiom.

    • Functions are applied from left to right instead of inside out.

    • Support for multiple return values comes for free.

    • No need for operator precedence.

    • Fewer delimiters are required:

      • Parentheses are not needed to control operator precedence.
      • Semicolons are not needed to separate statements.
      • Commas are not needed to separate arguments.

    (Note: Sapf is inspired by, but is not purely a concatenative language because it has lexical variables.)

    When I am programming interactively, I most often find myself in the situation where I have a value and I want to transform it to something else. The thing to do is apply a function with some parameters. With concatenative programming this is very natural. You string along several words and get a new value.