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ASCII is a much smaller space of possible operators, so an ASCII-based language is always going to end up significantly more verbose than one that allows non-ASCII symbols. I don't use APL but I definitely appreciate being able to write ≤ or ⊆ or ∀ if that's what I mean, rather than having to expand those out in ASCII.

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≤ "expands" in J to <: Definitely not more verbose.

J uses . and : as modifiers to a base operator to create a pretty big set of primitives. See https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/NuVoc

> ≤ "expands" in J to <: Definitely not more verbose.

I mean, in a fixed-width font (as people tend to use for programming) it's literally twice as long. That adds up.

Actually, J is often less verbose than the equivalent APL, hence its use for code golfing.

This is less true since APL has begun integrating J semantics and operators, but still..

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