Re: Programming?

[Richard Harrison <richard_harrison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bruce Smith wrote:

> How many other people on this list have ever used APL?  Anyone?

Funny you should ask...as I sit here draining my e-mail on one box,
I'm prototyping the GUI for a "paperless" resume management system for
my company (CitiGroup) on another box, using APL.  The level of
abstraction of APL is superbly well-suited to the OO modelling of
applications to be implemented in any language on any platform. I
expect the working app. to be written in Visual Basic, distributed to
Win95 desktops, and to implement real-time cross-communication to/from
IBM MVS hosted DB2 and Novell hosted LAN file-systems. It could be
BETTER implemented in APL, but that isn't the system owner's choice
since he's heard more comments from [typedef Bruce{}] than [typedef
Richard{}] (actually that should be "class" instead of "typedef," if
the OO abtractions of C++ are to be enforced). My job as project
architect is to use APL to cut the app. into bites small enough for
the VB developers to be able to chew.

My point is that APL CAN be easily and effectively applied at ANY
level of abstraction from teaching programming to metamodelling. If
we're limiting the discussion to first-language-to-learn, APL is
swell. My first was also FORTRAN, which I've never used professionally
- my second was APL. I expect to write in APL, C, C++ and Java (and
God only knows what else) for the rest of my career, but. given my
druthers I'd pick APL every time.

TTFN,
Richard