lfnoise/sapf: Sound As Pure Form - a Forth-like language for audio synthesis using lazy lists and APL-like auto-mapping

A bit from the readme appreciating concatenative programming:

The Joy language introduced concatenative functional programming. This generally means a stack based virtual machine, and a program consisting of words which are functions taking an input stack and returning an output stack. The natural syntax that results is postfix. Over a very long time I have come to feel that syntax gets in between me and the power in a language. Postfix is the least syntax possible.

There are several reasons I like the concatenative style of programming:

Function composition is concatenation.
Pipelining values through functions to get new values is the most natural idiom.
Functions are applied from left to right instead of inside out.
Support for multiple return values comes for free.
No need for operator precedence.
Fewer delimiters are required:
- Parentheses are not needed to control operator precedence.
- Semicolons are not needed to separate statements.
- Commas are not needed to separate arguments.

(Note: Sapf is inspired by, but is not purely a concatenative language because it has lexical variables.)

When I am programming interactively, I most often find myself in the situation where I have a value and I want to transform it to something else. The thing to do is apply a function with some parameters. With concatenative programming this is very natural. You string along several words and get a new value.

1 comments

A bit from the readme appreciating concatenative programming:
The Joy language introduced concatenative functional programming. This generally means a stack based virtual machine, and a program consisting of words which are functions taking an input stack and returning an output stack. The natural syntax that results is postfix. Over a very long time I have come to feel that syntax gets in between me and the power in a language. Postfix is the least syntax possible.
There are several reasons I like the concatenative style of programming:
Function composition is concatenation.
Pipelining values through functions to get new values is the most natural idiom.
Functions are applied from left to right instead of inside out.
Support for multiple return values comes for free.
No need for operator precedence.
Fewer delimiters are required:
Parentheses are not needed to control operator precedence.
Semicolons are not needed to separate statements.
Commas are not needed to separate arguments.
(Note: Sapf is inspired by, but is not purely a concatenative language because it has lexical variables.)
When I am programming interactively, I most often find myself in the situation where I have a value and I want to transform it to something else. The thing to do is apply a function with some parameters. With concatenative programming this is very natural. You string along several words and get a new value.