In a lot of these APL discussions I see an obsession with terse implementations of simple standard library-type functionality. Who on Earth has to literally write a loop in the middle of their source code to find the max of a bunch of numbers? I would just call the appropriate standard library function, especially in languages like Python that have excellent general-purpose data structures and standard libraries for them.

I think you should reread the article. One of the point of the APL community is that terseness itself is a goal.

> Who on Earth has to literally write a loop in the middle of their source code to find the max of a bunch of numbers?

People that uses JavaScript or other language which have a really small standard library.

Nah, they could easily write a function for max if they really wanted or needed it. Maybe terseness just isn't that tremendously valuable to a lot of coders.

But that function is precisely what they're writing? Add a "return max;" at the end and you have you function. It will still be longer than |/.

> Maybe terseness just isn't that tremendously valuable to a lot of coders.

That's the thing. The big difference between the APL community and the rest is the value they accord to terness. I'm not saying they are right or wrong, I'm saying that it is what defines them.

Another point that goes with the symbols is that the symbols may not have the baggage that words have. Words can mean a lot of different things.