www.acm.org/sigapl/whyapl.htm
APL code takes less time to write and debug than any other high level language. This makes it the most efficient and cost effective language from the combined personnel and hardware point of view. Because of these features, APL is the ideal language for all types of people: Those people who want to learn a programming language Those who need a computer which works for them, not they for the computer Managers interested in being managers, not programmers Programmers who want to program What is APL? APL is a language for describing procedures in the processing of information. It can be used to describe mathematical procedures having nothing to do with computers, or to describe to a human being the way a computer works. Most commonly, however, at least at this time, it is used for programming in the ordinary sense of directing a computer to process numeric or alphabetic data. The language, originally titled Iverson Notation, was designed to overcome the inherent ambiguities and points of confusion found when dealing with standard mathematical notation. It was later described in 1962 in a book simply titled A Programming Language hence APL. Towards the end of the sixties, largely through the efforts of IBM, the computer community gained its first exposure to APL. APL is a user-oriented notation, particularly well suited for communication from people to other people or to computers. The notation consists of a set of symbols letters, numbers, punctuation, algebra, and special shapes, with a very simple set of rules syntax for putting them together to describe the processing of data. The data can be either numeric or literal which includes words and text handling. In fact there are about a hundred different primitive ie fundamental to APL operations which can be performed. This can be compared to having a calculator with over 100 different function keys. Following the old Chinese proverb that a picture is worth a thousand words, the APL symbol set is the equivalent of many words in describing algorithms or procedures. Often one or a few APL symbols function can have the same result as several lines of code in another computer language or of several paragraphs in English. APL allows the computer to be used in the same way as many hand-held calculators. Any operation which can be performed on a small calculator can be performed just as easily on a computer using APL. The answer is returned immediately, just as with the ordinary calculator. APL was originally created as a shorthand notation for the communication of mathematical procedures. It is easy to learn and easy to use because it was not designed to make things easier for the computer, but rather to make it easier for man to communicate with the computer. The extensive use of symbols or shapes for company advertising purposes;
A number of APL symbols are already taught in every school as part of arithmetic and algebra. The additional ones are easy to learn and can be learned as needed. Thousands of students at the high school level and higher have already demonstrated that APL is easy to learn and can be used effectively in a short time. Every higher order mathematical operation which can be performed by any large computer can be performed by an APL computer. The difference is that, with APL all of these operations can be performed conversationally while using the computer as a desk calculator. A series of keystrokes is entered, and an answer is immediately returned. If you type something that produces a machine error, the computer tells you exactly what the error was and where it occurred. APL error messages are so clear that any mistakes on your part become immediately apparent. In short, if you know how to use hand-held or desk calculators, you can begin to use an APL computer immediately. You can learn any number of primitive operations quickly by reading either the computer instruction manual or one of the standard books on APL. Traditional application development usually requires much paperwork before any coding begins. While this is useful for many static application, which should be written from detailed specs, others can only be adequately planned through trial and discovery. Many, if not most, APL applications are written by creating a working framework prototype very early in the design cycle, and then by developing of additional versions with further improvements step by step. The result is an application which more closely meets the needs of the user, allowing him/her to discover new and useful attributes of the applications when using it. In this way, APL helps not only during the coding period but during the design cycle as well. A number of businessmen who were introduced to APL at a meeting were so turned on by the ability to do interesting and productive work in a very short time that they stayed up most of the night working at the terminals exploring their new found power! Experiences like these are commonplace and have changed attitudes about computers. APL is widely used in the United States, Canada and Western Europe. It is provided as a centralized service in some companies and purchased from outside sources in others. APL applications cover the gamut of computer uses: business, scientific, accounting, engineering, education, actuarial, text processing, pension valuations, simulation, graphics, and many more. Computers are programmed in APL by financial analysts, actuaries, business managers, clerks, administrative assistants, professional programmers, etc. The common bond among all users is that at last the computer has been made directly available to the end user, to enhance his/her own creativity without being bogged down with a list of computer details and restrictions. In addition to being extremely powerful, APL is very easy to learn. The rules of the language allow non-programmers to create short working programs almost instantly, thereby providing immediate positive reinforcement. Together with the ability to create programs with English language names, this allows the end-user to become directly involved and reduces or eliminates the communication problem between the end-user and the professional programmer. In turn, this shortens turnaround and yields a more accurate representation of the users needs. Alan Perlis, Director of Computer Science at Yale University, said in a recent presentation that APL was one of the few truly creative masterpieces of the computer world in the last 30 years. He also has said that he can cover three times as many concepts in his class time using APL as he could using other languages. When some of his students who have learned APL, but have not lived through the years of development of computer languages, are introduced to other languages, they wonder why anyone would use them, much less even invent them. For teachers who want to get away from rote learning and use techniques that emphasize understanding and insight, APL is excellent. APL serves as a notation for both writing the algorithms of a discipline and then exploring the behavior of those algorithms via a computer since the notation is also a program. Since APL is essentially system independent, a student runs into few computer architecture limitations or system limitations. APL has been adopted by the Graduate School of Management at UCLA as the standard computer language to be taught to all MBA students. On other levels of education, APL is used in Public School systems such as Atlanta, Georgia. In this instance the application is to teach computing concepts and mathematics to grade schoolers. APL allows a larger part of a project to be performed by one person. APL is an interactive, fast, powerful and terse computing language. Many more applications development projects can be carried out by a single programmer, rather than by a team. Thus, communications problems are avoided and other overhead costs managerial, reports, meetings, etc.
The end-user can learn just a small portion of the total APL usually in only a few hours, and then he may add his own functions. The building of these functions most of them no more than five to ten APL lines is much like the users h...
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