I implemented the Apple array system with the aim of tidying up some of the shortcomings of J, with which I am familiar.
Testing is widespread in programming, but correctness in programming is mostly assured by construction. Testing prods a "black box"; this is appealing in that libraries are presented to users as black boxes, but, as we shall see, it is limited in what it can accomplish for deep logical reasons.
There are some ways that functional programming languages still lack when compared to C; in particular they fail to export their constructs for use in other languages.
Compilers and linkers put their own version information in ELF binaries; we can inspect
with readelf
on the .comment
section, to wit:
One PL nihilism is "all languages are the same." This is not so—general-purpose languages have converged on procedures, but languages that differ nontrivially are used in computing.
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