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I'd love to have a language that combines the notation of APL with the ergonomics of J (ie. hooks and forks enabling functional-ish programming, a de facto open

by dancek 7y ago

I'd love to have a language that combines the notation of APL with the ergonomics of J (ie. hooks and forks enabling functional-ish programming, a de facto open source implementation and a working Android "IDE").

shrubble 7y ago
There's the fully open source GNU APL which compiles on Arm Linux in addition to Linux, OpenBSD, MacOS. I don't know what is needed to get from Arm Linux to Android.
- mlochbaum 7y ago
  dzaima/APL (https://github.com/dzaima/apl https://github.com/dzaima/apl) has an Android version. I would recommend that over GNU APL which makes a number of questionable language choices. Many modern APLs—Dyalog APL, NARS2000, ngn/apl, and dzaima/APL—include support for forks. They're usually called function trains in APL.
  - shrubble 7y ago
    Seeing as I am not an APL guru, I would appreciate your comments on the language choices that you don't agree with.
    - mlochbaum 7y ago
      The one that should stand out to programmers in other languages is using dynamic scope instead of lexical scope for its anonymous functions, even though they were based on Dyalog's dfns which are lexically scoped. There are other more APL-centric issues such as even more questionable use of square brackets than the typical APL. I work for Dyalog which is a "competitor" (in practice, the APL market share is small enough that any APL doing well helps us all). We have a lot of respect for other APL implementations and frequently use their choices as reference points for our own decisions. GNU is the only exception.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - dancek 7y ago
    Thanks for the tip and for telling me about function trains. Also great work on Dyalog, which I had a personal license to back when I experimented a couple of years ago. I can't recall what my problem with GNU APL was but I quickly found it too painful to try and learn with.
6keZbCECT2uB 7y ago
I just use APL for learning, but Dyalog APL provides hooks, forks, and various other operators (like @) for supporting functional programming. Their RIDE effort supports a linux IDE, but not an Android one AFAIK. I personally find the APL notation substantially easier to start with over J because each symbol is more mnemonic for what it does and because each operator uses a single symbol which helps a lot with mentally tokenizing.

by dancek 7y ago

shrubble 7y ago

There's the fully open source GNU APL which compiles on Arm Linux in addition to Linux, OpenBSD, MacOS. I don't know what is needed to get from Arm Linux to Android.

mlochbaum 7y ago
dzaima/APL (https://github.com/dzaima/apl https://github.com/dzaima/apl) has an Android version. I would recommend that over GNU APL which makes a number of questionable language choices. Many modern APLs—Dyalog APL, NARS2000, ngn/apl, and dzaima/APL—include support for forks. They're usually called function trains in APL.
- shrubble 7y ago
  Seeing as I am not an APL guru, I would appreciate your comments on the language choices that you don't agree with.
  - mlochbaum 7y ago
    The one that should stand out to programmers in other languages is using dynamic scope instead of lexical scope for its anonymous functions, even though they were based on Dyalog's dfns which are lexically scoped. There are other more APL-centric issues such as even more questionable use of square brackets than the typical APL. I work for Dyalog which is a "competitor" (in practice, the APL market share is small enough that any APL doing well helps us all). We have a lot of respect for other APL implementations and frequently use their choices as reference points for our own decisions. GNU is the only exception.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dancek 7y ago
  Thanks for the tip and for telling me about function trains. Also great work on Dyalog, which I had a personal license to back when I experimented a couple of years ago. I can't recall what my problem with GNU APL was but I quickly found it too painful to try and learn with.

6keZbCECT2uB 7y ago

I just use APL for learning, but Dyalog APL provides hooks, forks, and various other operators (like @) for supporting functional programming. Their RIDE effort supports a linux IDE, but not an Android one AFAIK. I personally find the APL notation substantially easier to start with over J because each symbol is more mnemonic for what it does and because each operator uses a single symbol which helps a lot with mentally tokenizing.