> Concerning notation and operations on lists, the "old guard"
> of programming languages (Fortran and a lot of stuff derived
> from it -- Basic, C/C++, Java) have a very weak, limited set
> of built-in operations for processing lists. Lisp, I'm sure,
> is very powerful, but also very idiosyncratic.
I think we can learn from a variety of sources. In fact, your examples
translate almost directly into APL, vintage 1957, so I wouldn't be so
quick to sneer at "old guard" languages.
The functional programming tradition which includes FP, Scheme, ML,
Miranda, etc. also has a lot to teach us, as does the SETL/ABC/Python
lineage.
By the way, though Basic is clearly based on Fortran, the other
languages you mention -- C, C++, and Java -- are part of the Algol (and
later Simula 67) lineage.
I do need to learn more about Matlab/Octave and R/S. Can you recommend
a good high-level overview of these systems? Something that will
actually describe the semantics but won't go into reference-manual
levels of numbing detail....
-s