Esoteric non-esoteric languages (4)

1 Name: ORBAT : 2005-12-02 21:51 ID:AQDu/F49

I find it funny (sometimes verging on scary) that some "non-esoteric" languages very often resemble the languages that were purposefully created to be esoteric.

Take F-Script for example ( http://www.fscript.org/ a new-ish scripting language for OS X that can play along with the Cocoa framework). It's based on Smalltalk, Self and (god forbid) APL. I was reading the documentation and everything was fine and dandy until the author decided to start talking about messaging patterns and reduction. Here's a reduction example I found exceedingly hairy.

Let's say you have an array of strings, z, defined thusly

z := {{'e', 'f', 'g'}, {'5', '6', '7'}}

Now, what would you do, if you wanted to concatenate all the strings together into one single string (yielding 'efg567')?
Why, naturally, you'd type

(z\#++)\#++

What in god's name is that supposed to be. Don't even get me started on patterns. The concept of both patterns and reduction is simple enough, but the syntax is just hideous.

2 Name: ihope127 : 2005-12-03 00:45 ID:aKO73C3s

BANCStar?

3 Name: ORBAT : 2005-12-03 15:03 ID:AQDu/F49

Hah, yeah. It was funny that BANCStar was initially rumored to be a joke, but then the company that owned it (as far as anyone can own a language. What's the right way to express that anyhow?) apparently sued poor Connors (of Turing Tarpit fame.)

4 Name: ihope127 : 2005-12-03 16:07 ID:aKO73C3s

They own the patent, you mean?

So... what did Connors get it for?

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