APL & Lojban

[Karl Andrews <kandrews@ICHIPS.INTEL.COM>]

Andrew Sieber's response to Edward Cherlin's message (which I have yet to
receive - ah, the vagaries of Email) seems to indicate both are familiar
with APL. I am also semi-fluent in APL, and note that exposure to it
causes one to look at problems in an entirely different way. (Would that
be support for Sapir-Whorf?) Ordinary computer languages seem like pidgin
in comparison, which I suppose they are.

I originally became interested in Loglan and then Lojban as a means for
sharpening my thinking in general, somewhat in the same manner that APL
did for my math-oriented thinking. What jumped out at me was here are two
other Lojban people who were familiar with APL. When I was active in the
Seattle APL group, back in 1985 or so, there were two other people in that
group who were familiar with Loglan. One was a professor of anthropology
who was contributing familial relationship terms to the Loglan effort.

It just seems statistically unlikely that such a small set of people as
those familiar with APL and those familiar with Loglan/Lojban would have
such a proportionately large intersection. Is there something else going
on here, two aspects of a strange attractor, something in the nature of
'birds of a feather'?

Another observation is that the Lojban Home Page is hosted from Finland.
Finland was known around the world in the mid-80s as a hotbed of APL
activity. Interesting coincidence? Veijo, are you familiar with APL?

- Karl
--
The avalanche has already started.
It is too late for the pebbles to vote.      - Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5