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I'm curious why there was not larger adoption of this language and why it was lost by the wayside. One of the commenters mentioned that the symbology made it al

I'm curious why there was not larger adoption of this language and why it was lost by the wayside. One of the commenters mentioned that the symbology made it alien to average folks who did not have the background in that notation. That appears to imply that the domain learning curve was too steep for the folks who don't "think" in that fashion. Hmmm.

7thaccount 5y ago
I think some linear algebra knowledge certainly helps a lot, so that's a good point. A lot of APL doc talks about concepts such as "Rank" and "Inversion" and "Transpose". That is a little math heavy. The other problem is that I would bet that a lot of the early use for APL was done better by Excel spreadsheets on desktops. By the time APL moved off the mainframe, it was too late. Of course, I'd imagine as far as code maintenance goes, APL beats a very large spreadsheet with a lot of VBA. Excel also has built-in charts and other functionality that is far clunkier, even in the best APLs.
leephillips 5y ago
Solving a problem by writing a verbose loop lets you think along the surface of the problem. The APL way almost requires thinking harder before writing any code, and visualizing the transformations of arrays geometrically. The APL coder often works in a hammock with a pencil and paper, spending much of the time staring out the window. The conventional programmer spends most of the time tapping away. Many people resist this deeper mode of thought, because it hurts, or they’re not used to it. I think that is the root reason that array languages did not become more popular. The reason that Lisp did not become mainstream is similar. It’s not the parentheses, nor the weird characters. It’s the focus that effective use of these languages requires. Of course they are more powerful—far more powerful. But only as extensions to a thought process that normal people do not enjoy or can not exploit.
- ingas 5y ago
  Yes. A lot of programmers are lost without step-by-step debug. That's why concurency problems becames unsolvable for them.

7thaccount 5y ago

I think some linear algebra knowledge certainly helps a lot, so that's a good point. A lot of APL doc talks about concepts such as "Rank" and "Inversion" and "Transpose". That is a little math heavy. The other problem is that I would bet that a lot of the early use for APL was done better by Excel spreadsheets on desktops. By the time APL moved off the mainframe, it was too late. Of course, I'd imagine as far as code maintenance goes, APL beats a very large spreadsheet with a lot of VBA. Excel also has built-in charts and other functionality that is far clunkier, even in the best APLs.

leephillips 5y ago

Solving a problem by writing a verbose loop lets you think along the surface of the problem. The APL way almost requires thinking harder before writing any code, and visualizing the transformations of arrays geometrically. The APL coder often works in a hammock with a pencil and paper, spending much of the time staring out the window. The conventional programmer spends most of the time tapping away. Many people resist this deeper mode of thought, because it hurts, or they’re not used to it. I think that is the root reason that array languages did not become more popular. The reason that Lisp did not become mainstream is similar. It’s not the parentheses, nor the weird characters. It’s the focus that effective use of these languages requires. Of course they are more powerful—far more powerful. But only as extensions to a thought process that normal people do not enjoy or can not exploit.

ingas 5y ago
Yes. A lot of programmers are lost without step-by-step debug. That's why concurency problems becames unsolvable for them.