Programming with Less Than Nothing

    let A = (x) => (y) => (z) => x(z)(y((w) => z))

    let K = A(A(A))(A(A(A))(A)(A)(A)(A)(A); // (x) => (y) => x
    let S = A(A(A(A)(A(A)(A(A)))(A(A(A(A)((A(A)))))))(A)(A); // (x) => (y) => (z) => x(z)(y(z))

Actually, combinatory logic is more bloated than lambda calculus, generally needing more bits to express the same program [1]. One can argue that lambda calculus is one of the most concise languages ever [2].

> Dana smirks. “Well, yeah. JavaScript is an eager language. Can’t use the Y combinator.”

Eager languages can be made lazy by wrapping arguments in lambdas with dummy arguments, as done in the Javascript BLC interpreter [3].

[1] https://tromp.github.io/cl/LC.pdf

[2] https://www.ioccc.org/2012/tromp/

[3] https://github.com/tromp/AIT/blob/master/uni.js#L56

The last code block scrolls, by the way. It's 166 kB.

Note that S and K are curried functions which take one argument at a time. Further reading: https://stackoverflow.com/a/36321/

Awesome explainer of combinator logic, the writing style reminded me of this series of posts (which is always a good thing in my opinion):

https://aphyr.com/posts/353-rewriting-the-technical-intervie...

I did something similar by abusing Func and dynamic in C#: https://github.com/tonyedgecombe/functionalfizzbuzz/blob/mas...

I'm on Firefox and all i can see is boxes with code... Don't understand what this site is about.

And after all of this, all that one gets to do is using AI prompts to configure integrations on a MACH architecture cloud product, fetching data from a content cloud into a CMS.

Great article by the way.

You explained the thing, gave references to learn more about the thing, and even listed one con of the thing:

> It is also extremely difficult to understand.

But nowhere do I see a reason why we should learn the thing. Is It useful in any way? Is it just a curiosity? Does it develop your thinking? Any reason is fine, but if you don’t give one we’re just left looking at something which looks both complex and useless, so why would we learn further?

To really drive the point home, I have no doubt this would be fun to learn and even useful for a certain kind of people. But because you don’t say, we don’t know if we fit the bill.

Read all the way to the end!

I wonder if this guy has a problem getting hired.

nice 9.5/10 (minus half a point because my brain got hurt a little)

haha I was not expecting this journey :)

brilliant work!

** SPOILER **

> You lean back, exhausted but triumphant.

> Dana is dead.

Thank you for a good laugh.