Tutorial: Vectorization

Typically, most programming languages are not vectorized. An operation like + works on atomic/scalar datatypes:

1 + 1 // works
[1, 2, 3] + 3 // doesn't work

Extending these scalar operations to molecular/vector datatypes requires a loop of some sort:

[1, 2, 3].map((x) => x + 3) // [4, 5, 6]

Conversely, in array programming languages like APL/J/K, operations vectorize by default. This means that operations like + automatically scale to the molecular level:

1 + 1 // works
[1, 2, 3] + 3 // also works

sclin implements a loose variant of vectorization. Whereas in APL/J/K, this would be an error:

1 2 3 + 4 5 / doesn't work

This is valid in sclin:

[1 2 3] [4 5] +
=> [5 7]

Almost all - if not all - of sclin's commands involving scalar datatypes vectorize. This can include operations on FN:

[1 2 3] [ 1.+ 2.* ] map
=> [[2 3 4] [2 4 6]]

In fact, since + and * both vectorize, the above snippet can also use Q:

[1 2 3] [ 1.+ 2.* ] Q
=> [[2 3 4] [2 4 6]]

sclin can also vectorize over jagged structures:

[[1 2] 3 4 [[5 7] 8]] [1 2 3 4] +
=> [[2 3] 5 7 [[9 11] 12]]