6 ms·

Awesome and thanks! Do you actively use GNU APL? Is that implementation still maintained?

lokedhs 10y ago
It's being actively developed. I think the most recent official release was a few months ago. There isn't much special about official releases though, so I'd recommend you always use the most recent one from source. In fact, I do believe GNU APL is the youngest APL implementation out there, having had its initial release just a few years ago. I personally use it for working on data sets such as working on performance data from, say, vmstat. I'm also using it for casual calculations. It's very good for this since the syntax is so terse, I can do a lot of computation with very little code. And of course, I use it because it gives me some degree of satisfaction. For example I did one of the tasks in last year's Google Code Jam in APL.
- throwaway7645 10y ago
  Awesome and thanks! I'm trying to determine if I have a use case. Not sure if the fairly large CSV files I typically work with are too big as input vectors for APL.
  - lokedhs 10y ago
    How big are they. GNU APL isn't particularly tuned for this use case but arrays of a few hundred thousand rows is not a problem. I have had performance problems at several million rows, but it all depends on what you do.
    - throwaway7645 10y ago
      Usually not in the millions, but occasionally they are. I've seen a few videos for Dyalog-APL & J, but nothing on GNU-APL. Even a blog post would be welcome on setup with emacs/vim...etc.
      - lokedhs 10y ago
        Some time ago I created a video showing some of the features of the Emacs mode. I really should make a new one, since there have been some more development since then, and some features could have been shown better. Hopefully it can still be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4A5CKITnM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4A5CKITnM
        throwaway7645 10y ago
        Thank you! I'll watch it in full tonight. I'm not sure if you mention it or not, but are you using a special APL keyboard? Curious how you enter the characters.
        lokedhs 10y ago
        The Emacs mode provides two different methods to input APL symbols. It allows you to set a prefix key (like Super for example) that will map to the symbols, or you can use the APL imput method which uses "." (period) as a prefix when typing them. When using it, you can type C-c C-k which will open a quick help that shows they keymap.

It's being actively developed. I think the most recent official release was a few months ago. There isn't much special about official releases though, so I'd recommend you always use the most recent one from source. In fact, I do believe GNU APL is the youngest APL implementation out there, having had its initial release just a few years ago. I personally use it for working on data sets such as working on performance data from, say, vmstat. I'm also using it for casual calculations. It's very good for this since the syntax is so terse, I can do a lot of computation with very little code. And of course, I use it because it gives me some degree of satisfaction. For example I did one of the tasks in last year's Google Code Jam in APL.

throwaway7645 10y ago
Awesome and thanks! I'm trying to determine if I have a use case. Not sure if the fairly large CSV files I typically work with are too big as input vectors for APL.
- lokedhs 10y ago
  How big are they. GNU APL isn't particularly tuned for this use case but arrays of a few hundred thousand rows is not a problem. I have had performance problems at several million rows, but it all depends on what you do.
  - throwaway7645 10y ago
    Usually not in the millions, but occasionally they are. I've seen a few videos for Dyalog-APL & J, but nothing on GNU-APL. Even a blog post would be welcome on setup with emacs/vim...etc.
    - lokedhs 10y ago
      Some time ago I created a video showing some of the features of the Emacs mode. I really should make a new one, since there have been some more development since then, and some features could have been shown better. Hopefully it can still be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4A5CKITnM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4A5CKITnM
      - throwaway7645 10y ago
        Thank you! I'll watch it in full tonight. I'm not sure if you mention it or not, but are you using a special APL keyboard? Curious how you enter the characters.
        lokedhs 10y ago
        The Emacs mode provides two different methods to input APL symbols. It allows you to set a prefix key (like Super for example) that will map to the symbols, or you can use the APL imput method which uses "." (period) as a prefix when typing them. When using it, you can type C-c C-k which will open a quick help that shows they keymap.