Ten Good Things About APL

The purpose of this document is to outline some of the reasons that APL thrives more than forty years after its origination - both as a notational tool and as a vehicle for computer programming.

  1. The right-to-left execution rule (and the left-to-right reading rule).
    • The multiple and arbitrary conventions of mathematics are replaced by a single consistent and extensible rule.
  2. APL is ubiquitous.
    • There are implementations of APL available on hardware ranging from the mobile phone through to the corporate mainframe.
  3. Multiple vendors.
    • The APL programmer is not dependent on a single supplier, many applications written in APL have been easily ported across different versions of the language.
  4. Longevity.
    • APL has been around a long time, because it works. This also means that there are APL developers and development teams with considerable experience and real-world maturity and applications with decades of continuous use and continued development.
  5. This is a multidimensional world.
    • APL is intrinsically multi-dimensional, making the mapping between reality and program code more direct.
  6. APL coexists with other technology.
    • Applications written in APL make use of data generated by other development tools, APL reacts to the outside world - from the paper tape to the Net.
  7. Freedom from pseudo-English.
    • Because APL is a symbolic notation it surmounts language barriers - the Norwegian APL programmer can read the Japanese programmer's code directly.
  8. Conciseness aids on-demand development.
    • In a world of rapidly-changing requirements it is vital to create and amend code concurrently. APL is not verbose.
  9. Broad spectrum of applicability.
    • APL has been used for everything from exploring mathematical physics to programming payroll applications.
  10. People like APL.
    • Which is the ultimate strength - it may not be for everyone, but for the people who relate it becomes almost an addiction.

Note - The original version of this page can be found at http://www.dogon.myzen.co.uk/APL/Misc/tengood.html. The version here may have changed out of all recognition as other people have added their worldviews.

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