aoc2017 VS bqn-libs

In case you've jumped straight to the comments, here are some 'intro' links. Many of these also appear in ngn/k's readme.

First, direct links to ngn/k in the browser:

- REPL: https://ngn.bitbucket.io/k/#r

- editor: https://ngn.bitbucket.io/k/

Second, the best one-stop shop for an overview of k6's primitives (both ngn/k and oK are based on k6). https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/blob/gh-pages/docs/Manual....

The best k intro examples are in John Earnest's k editor iKe - there's a dropdown at the bottom right. http://johnearnest.github.io/ok/ike/ike.html

ngn/k's editor also has an 'examples' dropdown in its menu.

Next, some Advent of Code solutions, to show that k doesn't have to look like a mass of meaningless symbols: https://github.com/chrispsn/aoc2017/blob/main/answers.k

For an illustration of k's strengths,

Languages with multidimensional arrays (APL, BQN, J, but not K) have trouble with dicts because an index into an array is a list of numbers, and an index into a dict is an arbitrary value. Many primitives, and especially selection, are designed around lists of numbers and don't transfer to dicts. In K, where the index into a list is one number, there's still a requirement that the keys in a dict all have the same level of nesting, but this isn't bad in practice. BQN will eventually have hashmaps implemented as in a more mainstream/conventional way, as objects. There's a model at https://github.com/mlochbaum/bqn-libs/blob/master/hashmap.bq... .

I don't think studying the compiler is a very good way to learn BQN, but I would like to write up parts of it (limited by time and motivation of course). I did some chat sessions on this sort of compilation during early development; see the links at the bottom of https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/implementation/ .