As is presented in many of those articles, which hopefully I find time to read, I'm sure that rank is only one of many ways that APL and J reduce the need for "for" etc.
It is my personal opinion that APL, J and the various follow-ons provide ways to better address problems in a mathematical perspective. Sure, other languages can probably address these problems faster and more efficiently, but only with considerable effort conforming to the particulars of the languages. Okay. C can do lots. But let me get hold of an assembler for a particular processor and I'l run circles around it. So, what is the goal of programming. I don't know. Everyone has their own ideas. But I think that APL and its descendants are big step forward. On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 5:33 PM Roger Hui <[email protected]> wrote: > The following are a bunch of references for the Wikipedia page on rank. > For reasons of academic and Wikipedia procedures too complicated to be > explained here, I am reluctant to edit that Wikipedia page myself. If you > can't figure out where a reference fits just skip over it but, trust me, > they are all relevant. > > Abrams, P.S., An APL Machine, Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, 1970-02; > §II.E. > > Backus, J.W., Can Programming be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? A > Functional Style and Its Algebra of Programs, Communications of the ACM, > Volume 21, Number 8, 1978-08.; §11.3.3. > > Bernecky, R., An Introduction to Function Rank, APL88 Conference > Proceedings, APL Quote Quad, Volume 18, Number 2, 1987-12. > > Bernecky, R., and K.E. Iverson, Operators and Enclosed Arrays, 1980 APL > Users Meeting Proceedings, 1980-10-06 to -08. > > Bernecky, R., K.E. Iverson, E.E. McDonnell, R.C. Metzger, and J.H. > Schueler, Language Extensions of May 1983, SATN 45, I.P. Sharp Associates > Limited, 1983-05-02. > > Brown, J.A., The Principles of APL2, TR 03.247, IBM Santa Teresa > Laboratory, San Jose, California, 1984-03; §20.0. > > Dyalog, Dyalog APL Version 14.0 Release Notes, Dyalog Limited, 2015. > > Hui, R.K.W., Rank and Uniformity, APL95 Conference Proceedings, APL Quote > Quad, Volume 25, Number 4, 1995-06. > > Hui, R.K.W., Remembering Ken Iverson (https://keiapl.org/rhui/remember.htm > ), > 2004-11. > > Hui, R.K.W., Inner Product—An Old/New Problem, British APL Association > Conference 2009, 2009-06-08. > > Hui, R.K.W., and K.E. Iverson, J Introduction and Dictionary, Jsoftware > Inc., 1989-2004. > > ISO/IEC, Programming Language Extended APL, ISO/IEC 13751:2001(E), > 2001-02-01; §9.3.3-5. > > Iverson, K.E., Operators and Functions, Research Report #RC7091, IBM, > 1978-04-26. > > Iverson, K.E., A Dictionary of APL, APL Quote Quad, Volume 18, Number 1, > 1987-09. > > Iverson, K.E., A Personal View of APL, IBM Systems Journal, Volume 30, > Number 4, 1991-12. > > McCarthy, J., et al., LISP Programmer’s Manual, 1959-03. > > > > On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 4:13 PM, Roger Hui <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Y'all might want to point out that rank is a generalization of scalar > > extension, inner (matrix) product, and outer product in APL\360, maplist > in > > LISP, and map in modern functional programming languages. That (and/or > > filling in the details of that) may earn the Wikipedia page a stay of > > execution. In addition, rank is not just in J but in APL as well (in > > Dyalog APL, in the ISO Standard on Extended APL, in NARS2000). > > > > > > On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 2:16 PM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> So... it looks like someone wants to delete the > >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank_(J_programming_language) page. > >> > >> Personally, I think it describes a concept of general interest to the > >> programming community, with J being an illustrative (and perhaps > >> canonical) example. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-expression > >> page is similar in character (but has a lot more traction - far more > >> people have spent time talking about it). But, looking at the talk > >> page, it seem that that's not a viewpoint that has gotten any > >> significant foothold. > >> > >> Oh well... > >> > >> -- > >> Raul > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
