Roger Hui wrote:
>> BTW who's seen
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_APL_programming_language?
>> It would be better called "The Case Against APL" because like a good
>> counsel for the prosecution, the author carefully avoids saying
>> anything which could be construed in its favour. But it covers the
>> ground.
>>
>
> I have (and I had). Judging by its revision history
> and its originator, and the Wikipedia contributions
> of its originator, it was written by someone with
> a long association to APL, SHARP APL in particular.
> I have a pretty good idea who it was.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ian Clark <[email protected]>
> Date: Monday, May 25, 2009 14:26
> Subject: [Jchat] No More APL
> To: Chat forum <[email protected]>
>
>
>> On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 6:51 PM, Joey K Tuttle <[email protected]>
>> wrote:> ... I am curious what you mean when you say, "[I]
>>
>>> probably will never write another original APL application. J's
>>> portability between Windows, Mac and PDA alone sees to that
>>>
>> for me."
>>
>>> Can you explain to me what you mean by that??
>>>
>> I'll try to explain, Joey, without taking too long I hope...
>>
>> Ive written a lot of APL in my life. It started in 1973 with
>> APLSV in
>> collaboration with IBM ASDD Mohansic (remember it?) and in recent
>> years has entailed originating and maintaining code in major
>> commercial products written in Dyalog APL and latterly in
>> APL+Win --
>> and a lot of experience in porting code between the two. Code written
>> by people who didn't appreciate []ML<-3, or that the []AV's are
>> devastatingly different, and that the two sets don't overlap. Code
>> that needs frequent execution of B[a;b;c;d;e...]<-1, where B
>> is a
>> massive Boolean and you have (a b c d e ...) as a vector, and don't
>> want to blow up the ws because the engine converts Boolean to 32-bit
>> under the cover to implement an indexed assignment... I could go on
>> and on.
>>
>> This was back in the last century, and things may have gotten better
>> with APL since... but I doubt it's that better.
>>
>> You could say I'm heavily invested in APL, from two of its leading
>> vendors, and not initially inclined to try new-fangled dialects. At
>> first J gave me the queazy feeling I had when, as an Algol programmer,
>> I first saw APL back in 1973.
>>
>> Well, after less than 10 hours flying time with J, I was able to see
>> where an awful lot of nasty code could have been avoided. Code which
>> mopped up most of my work hours, not to mention the weekends preceding
>> each version release of my product.
>>
>> Now I'm retired, but I still haven't given up developing products.
>> There's TABULA (Vector 20.4) I'm tarting up for the eco market. I'm
>> prototyping it in APL and was delighted when Dyalog shipped a version
>> running under Windows Mobile, because that I see as its main platform.
>> For the customer, I hasten to add -- not for me as developer, because
>> I don't do ships in bottles. I plan to develop on the Mac from
>> now on
>> -- but Dyalog hasn't got a Mac version. Windows had made me my living
>> for the last 15 years, because it sure makes work for the
>> working man
>> to do. But now that I'm working for myself, not on someone else's
>> time, I don't have to be bothered with its sheer nonsense.
>>
>> Also I don't have a spare couple of grand to keep up with the latest
>> releases of Dyalog APL and APL+Win -- but that's not the key issue
>> because I could always find a customer to buy me the products I need.
>> No, the key issue for me is that I've written J code in Windows,
>> including GUI code, transferred the files to the Mac, also to my HP
>> iPAQ, an easy matter because they're ASCII txt files and it's
>> just a
>> case of moving the dongle... and the app works First Time.
>>
>> Now I have a lot of nostalgia for APL. It's a rare expertise --
>> not an
>> easy thing to walk away from. I still have APL code out there to
>> maintain for clients, so I won't say I'll never write another
>> line of
>> APL. But for an original (ie not a heritage) application, J is going
>> to be my tool of choice.
>>
>> Why? For 100 good reasons...
>> 1. code portability, especially with GUI.
>> ...The other 99 don't matter.
>>
>> On the downside, I have to set-to and learn J in my grey hairs, which
>> I'm finding truly mind-bending. But on balance, life's too short
>> to go
>> on battling with APL, under Windows.
>>
>> Ian Clark, aka J Rabbit.
>>
>>
>> BTW who's seen
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_APL_programming_language?
>> It would be better called "The Case Against APL" because like a good
>> counsel for the prosecution, the author carefully avoids saying
>> anything which could be construed in its favour. But it covers the
>> ground.
>>
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>
>
Somewhat confused an argument.
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