Re:Lang5 – A Stack Based Array Language
by smabie on Thursday March 12, 2020 @12:06PM
(#22558228)
It should evaluate from right to left, like all other array languages. Looks neat though!
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| on HN ]
This is a mistake perpetuated from old array languages.
Evaluation from left to right is more natural to people using latin alphabet.
It's totally arbitrary anyways. I suspect the only reason why there is right to left evaluation in APL family is to support assignment like this:
x: 1 + 2 + 3
which would have to be the following in left to right 1 + 2 + 3 :xI think most people would agree that 'a:f g h x' is easier to read than 'x h g f:a'. This may be an artifact from familiarity from math or something else, but I think the point still stands. I've personally never found RPN languages easy to read.