A Programming Language (APL) was invented in the swinging 60s, first appearing in 1964. C#, an OOP language, first appeared in the year 2000, to coincide with Britney’s Oops!… I did it again world tour.
Adding numbers
| APL | C# |
| 2 + 2 | using System;
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine(2 + 2);
}
}
|
Note: C# may get a REPL in Visual Studio when project Roslyn is finally released.
Min/Max
| APL |
C# |
11 ⌊ 20
75.6 ⌈ 87.3
11 28 52 14 ⌈ 20 |
Math.Min(11, 20);
Math.Max(75.6, 87.3);
(new[] { 11, 28, 52, 14 })
.Select(x => Math.Min(x, 20));
|
Note: in C# math operations are preceded by Math and followed by dot.
Counting Costs
| APL |
C# |
Costs ← 10.4 11.5 10.8 24 16.9
+/ Costs |
var costs =
new[] {10.4,11.5,10.8,24,16.9};
costs.Sum();
|
Computing Costs
| APL |
C# |
|
Price ← 5.2 11.5 3.6 4 8.45
Qty ← 2 1 3 6 2
Costs ← Price × Qty
|
var prices =
new[] {5.2,11.5,3.6,4,8.45};
var qtys =
new[] {2,1,3,6,2};
var costs =
prices
.Zip(qtys, (price, qty) =>
new {Price=price, Qty=qty})
.Select(pair =>
pair.Price * pair.Qty);
|
Summary
C# has the clear lead on the number of characters to express problems. That said if you’re not paid by the number of characters you write you may want to Try APL.