alt Hacker NewsTerseness is easier to remove from a programming language than verbosity.
You can use a source preprocessor to enable you to write APL programs by using keywords instead of any symbols that you do not like. You can also use a source preprocessor to expand any traditional APL source, by converting symbols into keywords, so that it will be easier to read for you.
Using symbols instead of keywords is a minor feature of APL, which was inherited from the standard mathematical notation, from which APL was derived.
The important features of APL are the expression syntax and the set of available operators, not the symbols used for them.
Moreover, if you have difficulties in following complicated expressions, you can always break them in smaller subexpressions.
When someone presents an "incomprehensible" APL program, they show a huge expresion without comments.
A decent APL program, like in any other programming language, would need good comments, but here comments are frequently desirable at the level of subexpressions.
> A decent APL program, like in any other programming language, would need good comments, but here comments are frequently desirable at the level of subexpressions.
I guess that might be true for APL, for other programming languages that's not true at all. The ideal program is clear enough to be self explanatory. Of course there might be some implementation choices that need a comment. Or in some cases the problem is so difficult that this is not possible.
But readability should be the goal and most of the time this is feasible without comments. E.g. by using descriptive variable and function names. And by breaking up your program into logical and cohesive parts, using functions, objects, modules or whatever construct your language is offering.