APL WikiAPL is A Programming Language, derived from a mathematical notation developed at Harvard in the 1950s and published in a book of the same name by [wiki:Kenneth_E._Iverson Kenneth E. Iverson].
It is distinguished by
- extreme terseness
- defining its primitives over arrays
the use of [SpecialCharacters special glyphs] to denote its primitive functions
- extensive use of higher-order functions
Further reading
- [wiki:WikiPedia/APL_programming_language Wikipedia article on APL]
[http://home.earthlink.net/~swsirlin/apl.faq.html Sam Sirlin's APL FAQ]
[http://elliscave.com/APL_J/tool.pdf Notation as a Tool of Thought] K.E. Iverson's 1979 Turing Award lecture (see also ClassicPapers)