lfnoise/sapf: Sound As Pure Form - a Forth-like language for audio synthesis using lazy lists and APL-like auto-mapping

A bit from the readme appreciating concatenative programming:

The Joy language introduced concatenative functional programming. This generally means a stack based virtual machine, and a program consisting of words which are functions taking an input stack and returning an output stack. The natural syntax that results is postfix. Over a very long time I have come to feel that syntax gets in between me and the power in a language. Postfix is the least syntax possible.

There are several reasons I like the concatenative style of programming:

• Function composition is concatenation.

• Pipelining values through functions to get new values is the most natural idiom.

• Functions are applied from left to right instead of inside out.

• Support for multiple return values comes for free.

• No need for operator precedence.

• Fewer delimiters are required:

  • Parentheses are not needed to control operator precedence.
  • Semicolons are not needed to separate statements.
  • Commas are not needed to separate arguments.

(Note: Sapf is inspired by, but is not purely a concatenative language because it has lexical variables.)

When I am programming interactively, I most often find myself in the situation where I have a value and I want to transform it to something else. The thing to do is apply a function with some parameters. With concatenative programming this is very natural. You string along several words and get a new value.