Comment APL (Score 1) 794
I have fond memories of Fortran from the only programming course I took in college 25+ years ago. Warm, fuzzy, marshmallow-scented memories. That will sound weird until I tell you that the *other* language we had to use in that class was APL. That wacky-charactered, right-to-left, overstruck, array-spouting beast was the unholy spawn of Greek and Chinese psychotics, raised by ancient Egyptians. While marveling at the power available in a single dense line of APL code was fun (for certain values of "fun"), when we were allowed to use Fortran we felt like subsistence hunter-gatherers visiting McDonalds.
"You mean you just *tell* it what to do and it does it? And these words actually mean what they say? Wow!"
These days when I dabble with Linux and work on social science software syntax files, I'm grateful for two things from that long-ago course: the general programming concepts I learned in Fortan, and the fact that I don't have to touch APL. Mailbox! Open Mailbox!