Kiki bills itself as the “array programming system of unknown origin.” We thought it reminded us of APL which, all by itself, isn’t a bad thing.
The announcement post is decidedly imaginative. However, it is a bit sparse on details. So once you’ve read through it, you’ll want to check out the playground, which is also very artistically styled.
If you explore the top bar, you’ll find the learn button is especially helpful, although the ref and idiom buttons are also useful. Then you’ll find some examples along with a few other interesting tidbits.
One odd thing is that Kiki reads right to left. So “2 :* 3 :+ 1” is (1+3)2 not (23)+1. Of course, you can use parentheses to be specific.
If you are jumping around in the tutorial, note that some cells depend on earlier cells, so randomly pressing a “run” button is likely to produce an error.
Would you use kiki? There are plenty of array languages out there, although perhaps none that have such poetic documentation. Let us know if you have a favorite language for this sort of thing and if you are going to give Kiki a try.
If you want to try old school APL, that’s easier than ever.
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