(2020)

Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504106

Step 1: Huh, I wonder what some of those implementations look like?

Step 2: https://codeberg.org/ngn/k/src/branch/master/a.c

Step 3: Uh, I think I'm urgently needed elsewhere.

Isn't the loop

    let max = list[0];
    for (let i = 0; i < list.length; i++) {
     max = Math.max(list[i], max);
    }

at the end just implementing the variadic `Math.max()` of JavaScript by pretending that it's binary? (I bring up JavaScript because the text seems to indicate that's the language in which the snippets are written: "You suggest an alternative, wincing slightly at the lambda notation you need to avoid running afoul of JavaScript’s variadic Math.max(): ….")

My only "denial" when encountering high-church array languages is to deny them the precious brain space required to memorize their line noise syntax in order to be able to read them without a high ratio of comments to code.

They're (poorly) aping mathematical notation without the properties that give actual notations their power to augment thought using symbolic manipulation, but the people writing code in such languages don't see the need to write like mathematicians; to wit, they don't write mostly in English and save their code snippets for apposite moments when they would illuminate as opposed to obscure. Haskell programmers at least have the taste to use names in their code.