Comment by RodgerTheGreat
4 days ago
There are a number of dynamic languages to choose from where tables/dataframes are truly first-class datatypes: perhaps most notably Q[0]. There are also emerging languages like Rye[1] or my own Lil[2].
I suspect that in the fullness of time, mainstream languages will eventually fully incorporate tabular programming in much the same way they have slowly absorbed a variety of idioms traditionally seen as part of functional programming, like map/filter/reduce on collections.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_(programming_language_from_K...
[1] https://ryelang.org/blog/posts/comparing_tables_to_python/
Nushell is another one with tables built-in:
https://www.nushell.sh/book/working_with_tables.html
It's interesting how often there are similarities between Numshell, Rye and Lil, although I think they are from different influences. I guess it's sort of current zeitgeist if you want something light, high level and interactive.
Another page about Rye tables: https://ryelang.org/cookbook/working-with/tables/
Interesting links - tnx. Apropos the optimism of "eventually", I think of language support for say key-value pair collections, namespaces, as still quite impoverished. With each language supporting only a small subset of the concision, apis, and datastructures, found useful in some other. This some 3 decades after becoming mainstream, and the core of multiple mainstream languages. Diminishing returns, silos, segregation of application domains, divergence of paradigm/orientation/idioms, assorted dysfunctions as a field, etc... "eventually" can be decades. Maybe LLMs can quicken that... or perhaps call an end to this era, permitting a "no, we collectively just never got around to creating any one language which supported all of {X}".