wikipedia APL page revamp - wiki draft

Deletions & Comments have been moved to the bottom. Those referring to a specific entry have their target repeated above.

If you add new entries in the text Please add references in the reference section at the bottom of the article.

You can sign your entries by appending 'SIG' prefixed and suffixed by '@' which will be converted to your own equivalent of -- PhilLast 2009-07-29 09:48:44

Draft of intro to wikipedia APL prog lang article

APL is an acronym for A Programming Language - it is based on a strict (unambiguous) mathematical notation invented by the late Kenneth E Iverson; it is an interpreted, interactive, and array oriented commercial language available for all contemporary platforms. Amongst programming languages, APL has several unique/exclusive hallmarks:

• It is culture neutral at its core; it uses mathematical symbols rather than words.
• It is solution focussed; it promotes the expression of algorithms without any consideration of machine architecture or operating system - APL is a type inferred language that rarely necessitates coding structures for loops.
• It has just one simple function precedence rule: all expressions evaluate from right to left unless modified by parenthesis.

It was an important influence on the development of spreadsheets, functional programming[1], Mathematica and MatLab[2], and its descendents J[3], K[4] & q[4].

The language flourishes in scientific[5], actuarial[6], statistical[7] and financial[8] applications, and is favored by domain experts writing software for their own purposes. APL is also associated with rapid and lightweight development projects in volatile business environments.

Recent notable extensions to APL interpreters and IDEs include:

• anonymous lambdas[9]

• support for class/object programming
  

• support for .Net assemblies, including COM Interrop
• APL as a native .NET language using Visual Studio 2008 [10]
• access to Windows resources (Shell, Win32 API, WMI)
• ActiveX access to COM aware applications e.g MS Office suite
• XML-array conversion primitives [11]

References

[1] ACM Award Citation – John Backus. 1977
[2] The Growth of MatLab - Cleve Moler
[3] insert ref to J-software
[4] insert ref to Kx-Systems
[5] APLX version 4 – from the viewpoint of an experimental physicist. Vector 23.3
[6] insert ref to actuarial (?)
[7] insert ref to statistical (?)
[8] insert ref to financial (?)
[9] Dynamic Functions in Dyalog APL - John Scholes. 1997
[10] http://apl2000.com/software.php (see VisualAPL Installer v1.5.8050 & VisualAPL Forum)
[11] insert ref to APLX & Dyalog []XML here!

End of article

Deletions

APL is one of the oldest programming languages, It is a dynamic, interpreted language based on Iverson's mathematical notation. All data are arrays. Primitive operations all extend to arrays, and are denoted by distinctive graphic symbols rather than words, making APL programs compact and visually striking, with few or no loops.

* support for Subversion and Unicode text handling

Comments

• APL is an acronym for A Programming Language

First, it isn't an acronym, which is a word whether made up or not. It's an abbreviation or initialism. More importantly it doesn't warrant being mentioned in the introduction. It's History! -- PhilLast 2009-07-29 00:15:27

APL is an acronym (see page 1 of 'Interactive Approach' 3rd Edition). Acronyms sometimes stop being treated as such when they enter conversations as words (made up or otherwise) or phonetic sounds e.g. NATO, GUI etc. APL has no phonetic sound. -- AjayAskoolum

So, Gillman & Rose made the same mistake! Its lack of a 'phonetic sound' is what stops its being an acronym but it doesn't matter. It has no place in the introduction. Who gives a damn what "J" stands for? Or "C" or "K" -- PhilLast 2009-07-29 08:32:07

I suggest that as we're aiming for conciseness as well as accuracy these three points could be combined into one slightly more general based on the second: "access to (all?/most?) available external resources" or some such. -- PhilLast 2009-07-29 09:12:47

• support for .Net assemblies, including COM Interrop
• access to Windows resources (Shell, Win32 API, WMI)
• ActiveX access to COM aware applications e.g MS Office suite

I think these 3 points are fine as they are, if only because the jargon means exactly the same for APL as for other tools.

I had originally crossed out "anonymous lambdas" because 1. it is a feature of but 1 interpreter 2. the meaning of the jargon is not the same as in C# where it originates - therefore this statement will add confusion.

I had originally crossed out "XML-array conversion primitives" because 1. the implementation is very trivial (no XSLT, SCHEMA, or SOAP support) 2. this statement hints at too detailed a level on the nature of APL without focussing on the detail 3. there are better and more powerful (platform independent) primitives like []sql and []chart that deserve to be mentioned except that the terms of reference here rule this out.

Still, someone has reinstated both statement!!! AjayAskoolum

I am a trifle worried by the direction this is going - possibly an effect of working on this online rather than face-to-face. At the meeting on Friday we were able to use the time to discuss/hone/agree, the five (can I count correctly?) of us had a discussion of direction that is perhaps not explicit in the proposed text.

At risk of being tedious I think that to get a revised introductory paragraph together we need to understand our intent (which, I think, is to present APL the way we see it - as a living and evolving entity; certainly we need to get ourselves out of the rut of so many well-worn arguments).

I am also musing what should come after the introductory paragraph - I think that history should be consigned to the past. I'd like to see a couple of sections, one that tells "the management" what their enterprise should gain by including APL in their IT arsenal, and another that shows programmers/problemsolvers why APL is a good tools to use.

I'm saying these things because my view is that someone using the Wikipedia wants to learn "about something" rather than "the history of something".

Sorry to be counterproductive - but it may be that head-to-head is a quicker way to get where we want to be than pecking away at words on a page.

Also apologising if I'm breaking the rules/exhortations about comments here - Dick Bowman (27 July 2009).

• The language flourishes in ...

Flourishing?! Certainly not. "APL is still used in..." or "APL is used in..." seems to me much more appropriate.

• ... and is favored by domain experts

Favoured by Domain Experts?. Certainly not. There is a whole range of programming languages available which focus on that. Some of them are quite successful. Almost all of them are more successful than APL in total.

• I think Beau Webber's example is sufficient to justify the claim on its own but add actuaries and statisticians who use APL rather than get a programmer to do it and the case is made.

What I am missing is a remark about the most important enhancements: Namespaces in Dyalog and integrated debuggers in some implementation. -- KaiJaeger 2009-07-26 08:04:22

• Put one in then. -- PhilLast 2009-07-29 00:15:27

• ...[11] insert ref to APLX & Dyalog []XML here! I will add a link to the documentation on the APLX implementation, or maybe I will add something to the APL Wiki and link to that. Because we're still in Beta for a short while longer, there's nothing permanent I can link to yet. -- -- SimonMarsden 2009-07-29 10:29:00