I'm feeling a bit of moderation bias here. I don't think it's fair to give submitters special treatment because their content is "interesting". When you post on HN, you open yourself to criticism. I felt that his argument was weak - using "Notepad readability" as a point in favor of APL - so I called him out on it.
Criticism is welcome but it should be substantive and you should try to understand what you're criticizing. All you've done so far is repeat the leading generic objection without apparently realizing how common it is, or that the current thread originated as a (highly) substantive answer to it.
> You are starting to grab at straws with this argument.
> but constructing supporting arguments out of thin air really doesn't help your case.
Both of those could be stated in a more constructive manner, such as asking for substantiation, rather than stating there isn't any. Discussing in goof faith requires you to provide an argument to the contrary if you disagree, and give the other side a chance to explain their assertions more.
You followed up the first paragraph with a clarifying question, which is good. That by itself would have been sufficient.
On a side note, please don't break HN's guideline against name-calling in arguments: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It's disconcerting to be faced with something that can't make sense according to standard assumptions, but that's exactly what's interesting here. We want curious responses that open discussion further, not dismissive ones that shut it down.