Top all-time · #6798
Analyze the Data not the Drivel
Personal blog · analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org · on HN as bakerjd99dataprogramming
Analyze the Data not the Drivel is a personal blog at analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org about data and programming. Since 2018, 12 different Hacker News readers have linked it 19 times, most often “NumPy another Iverson Ghost (2018)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-05, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this post, which discusses NumPy's notation, as a source for the term 'Iverson ghost' and for comparing NumPy with array languages like APL and J.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Practice relentless verification
Most-linked posts?
- NumPy another Iverson Ghost (2018)9 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2018-05-02
What Hacker News says?
There is at least one project that managed to take the Iverson ghost[1] from Numpy and actually implement a complete array language[2] on top of it, so there is no need to stray far away from Python's ecosystem. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42293723 [1] https://analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org/2018/03/31/numpy-anot... [2] https://github.com/briangu/klongpy
Comment linking /2018/03/31/numpy-another-iverson-ghost/
on “I don't like NumPy”Submitted NumPy another Iverson Ghost (2018) as a story · 46 points
HN discussion> It's not as extreme but I feel similarly every time I write dense numpy code. https://analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org/2018/03/31/numpy-anot...
Comment linking /2018/03/31/numpy-another-iverson-ghost/
on “Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)”Submitted Offensive Team Names and GUIDs as a story · 5 points
HN discussionhttps://analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org/2018/03/31/numpy-anot...
Comment linking /2018/03/31/numpy-another-iverson-ghost/
on “Thinking in an array language”Submitted NumPy another Iverson Ghost (2018) as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> Numpy https://analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org/2018/03/31/numpy-anot... . https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16982086 . > if other languages incorporated APL as a first class DSL, the same way they incorporated regex April for Common Lisp et al? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22225136
Comment linking /2018/03/31/numpy-another-iverson-ghost/
on “Is APL Dead? Not anymore”Submitted NumPy another Iverson Ghost as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI disagree. There’s a reason NumPy is extremely popular and APL/J never were, even though semantically they are extremely similar [0]. It’s not because it’s difficult for people to grasp the underlying concept of array-based programming, it’s because NumPy’s notation is far simpler to learn. [0] https://analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org/2018/03/31/numpy-anot...
Comment linking /2018/03/31/numpy-another-iverson-ghost/
on “Programming language notation is a barrier to entry”Submitted NumPy another Iverson Ghost (2018) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI've been teaching myself J and dabbled in a few other APL-family languages before that (Klong and Dyalog's APL mostly). I don't have any specific goal in mind and have been doing it for fun more than anything -- I recently tried writing a minimal ray tracer[0] for example. I've been surprised at how much I liked writing it. J can be derided for being a "puzzle language"[1], which isn't entirely unfair, but I've fou…
Comment linking /2018/03/31/numpy-another-iverson-ghost/
on “J for C Programmers”Submitted Let ChatGPT index your Latex as a story · 2 points
HN discussionWell, there's KlongPy[1]. While not APL, it is built on top of Python and manages to turn NumPy from "Iverson Ghost"[2] status into Klong[3], a proper array language. [1] https://github.com/briangu/klongpy [2] https://analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org/2018/03/31/NumPy-anot... [3] https://t3x.org/klong/
Comment linking /2018/03/31/NumPy-another-iverson-ghost/
on “The APL Challenge”Submitted NumPy another Iverson Ghost (2018) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIsn't the way those languages make concise programs by having short symbols instead of descriptive names? Comparing NumPy to APL it looks that way. https://analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org/2018/03/31/numpy-anot...
Comment linking /2018/03/31/numpy-another-iverson-ghost/
on “Xs: a concatenative array language inspired by kdb+ and FORTH”Submitted Extracting SQL code from SSIS dtsx packages with Python lxml as a story · 2 points
HN discussionNot at all anathema. Many array programmers are very big on code documentation. J has joxygen to generate html docs from comments and JOD which is a code dictionary system. https://analyzethedatanotthedrivel.org/the-jod-page/ https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Vocabulary/Libraries
Comment linking /the-jod-page/
on “An Implementation of J – Incunabulum (2008)”Submitted Review: The Way We Die Now as a story · 1 points
HN discussionScott, Thanks for your kind words "The author of this, who I know a little, maintains what I think is one of the most important pieces of code nobody ever talks about; JOD[0]." If I was selling JOD, I would seek to use your quote in promotional material. However, I am not selling JOD; it's open source for all to use - see: https://github.com/bakerjd99/jod It's even going on ice in the Arctic Code Vault. https://anal…
Comment linking /2020/08/17/jod-goes-into-the-arctic-code-vault/
on “NumPy another Iverson Ghost (2018)”