It was first created as a notation by Ken Iverson to teach students programming. The first implementation was only done many years afterwards. It required a dedicated keyboard for the mathematical symbols.
Iverson later created J with ASCII symbols. Arthur Whitney who later developed K and Q languages wrote a single page of terse C code which became the foundation of J language. Reading that code was mind-bending for me :) .
Iverson got a Turing Award for his work on APL and programming language notation. His essay Notation as a tool of thought is a great read.
"...there is nothing new under the sun." [ source ]
Emoji-based languages have existed since at least 2015, it looks like. But I'm glad that emojicode is gaining traction! I love me a good esolang.
APL developers actually had to get specific typewriter balls in the early days (before dot-based and laser printers) if they wanted to print out their source code to share it with other developers.
Have you tried emojicode?
Here's a hello world:
Some trivia on APL and J:
Emoji-based languages have existed since at least 2015, it looks like. But I'm glad that emojicode is gaining traction! I love me a good esolang.
APL developers actually had to get specific typewriter balls in the early days (before dot-based and laser printers) if they wanted to print out their source code to share it with other developers.
If you like terse C (or C++) code, you should check out this ray-tracing code that fits on the back of a business card.
I'll definitely check out that paper. Thanks a lot for sharing, Raunak!