I also have found that kids pick up APL very easily. Schools are probably missing a huge opportunity not using it to teach math and computer science.
Re:APL and Array Programming
by zelphirkalt on Sunday July 10, 2022 @01:00PM
(#32046461)
I also think schools are missing out massively, but not only by not teaching them at every chance, but because they do not combine these things. If I had been taught math and computer programming combined, implementing things one learns, damn, I would have been waaay more interested in math in later school years and that would probably have lead to me being much better at math later on at university too. It just gives you something practical to do and a feeling of success, when you make the computer do it for you, while at the same time you learn about computer programming.
I hope some day we see those 2 things married into one superb class at schools.
As it happens, my interview on The Array Cast was just published today:
https://www.arraycast.com/episodes/episode31-jeremy-howard
In it I discuss my thoughts on array programming, including in PyTorch, numpy, Tensorflow, and other libraries and languages. If you haven't seen it before, The Array Cast is a really great podcast including interviews with some of the most interesting folks in the array programming world. My fave episode so far is the one with Aaron Hsu (@arcfide) of co-dfns fame:
https://www.arraycast.com/episodes/episode19-aaron-hsu
My personal interest in APL is for teaching (my daughter and her friend who I tutor really like learning math via APL, and we've successfully covered territory that previously I'd had no luck making progress on using more traditional methods) and for studying notation (which is what APL was originally designed for).