A Programming Language (1962) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

A Programming Language (1962) [pdf]

softwarepreservation.org

89 pointstosh18 comments

Every time APL is mentioned I feel compelled to post this captivating video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4

My favorite (so far) is Aaron Hsu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Mt0GYHU9A

because it pokes hard at OOP culture.

Yea. His discussions on HN (user arcfide) are well worth reading.

Some users thought his compiler was a farce before he posted the stats. Yea it's just a few pages, but the magic is getting to just a few pages. It apparently took 4M loc of added and then deleted code to get there (iirc it was a huge number).

he made a few videos about apl too, parallel tree processing.. I like his subjects of discourse. I wish I could work (or intern~) with him.

If anyone is interested in APL, I would recommend trying out kdb+/q. The personal version is free (no charge): https://kx.com/connect-with-us/download/

It integrates an APL-like language (q) with a very nice time-series database (kdb+). Q programmers are highly prized on Wall St and can pull in truly staggering salaries.

I remember being snowed in and having nothing to read but back issues of QuoteQuad -- it was glorious :) Also APL for the TRS-80 Model I, despite not being able to show the APL charset (without a Graphtrax programmable character generator) was quite cool in exposing people to a language a bit off the beaten BASIC path that most were exposed to.

I've been looking for a while for a copy of the original red Plivka/Pakin APL book (not the APL2 one, even tho APL2 is what i know best), and they're there now on amazon, under $10.

Now i can relive the arguments about whether Sharp, STSC or APL2 was best

I love how it's published by Wiley and Sons. It reminds me of that episode of Different Strokes where someone asks the old rich patriarch how he got his wealth, and he says [paraphrased], "You know all that oil they got in the Middle East? Well someone has to sell them the barrels!"

I'm confused, is the word "A" the name of the language which is a predecessor to C, or was it just intended as the article "a"? As in, "Here's a programming language."

A Programming Language is the book title. The language it describes came to be known as "APL" [0], but the author didn't explicitly name it that way in the book.

The language "A" was created to replace APL.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)

Lower case article 'a'.

tryapl.org if you are curious to try your hand at programming in it.

Supports jupyter notebooks now too for what ever that's worth.

Dyalog APL in general supports a lot of old and new technology from interacting with R & Python to Jupyter Notebooks, ODBC, .NET, COM, DDE, Parallel multicore functions, graphics, multiplatform IDE, GPU support via Aaron Hsu's compiler, functional programming via DFNS & Tacit Function Trains...etc

If it was free I'd probably be using it.

Could have put PDF in the title...

Added now.

APL is the true origin of the phrase “write-only code.”

In my very brief experience, I find APL easier to read than J (although J looks more interesting feature-wise). Maybe the symbols help after all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com