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August 2020, Week 4

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Subject:
Re: [TECH3000] [EXT]: A preview of coming attractions...
From:
Stan Sieler <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Stan Sieler <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 27 Aug 2020 00:01:08 -0700
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Re:

> A great language, but notorious for being write-only;
>

Same way I describe it ... and I love APL!


>
> But using APL changes forever the way you think about problems ; take the
> classic production problem ...



> grammer will maybe produce a page of VBA. The ex-APL programmer will use a
> one-liner with MMULT, which encapsulates what was, for us back in the day,
> APL’s best party trick.


I'll echo Ron ... circa 1977 (when I was at Burroughs), I heard of an
internal programming competition at Burroughs Mission Viejo
(the equivalent of HP Cupertino).  A problem in spell checking a paper was
presented.   Answers were in ALGOL, COBOL, FORTRAN, and APL.
The APL one blew all the others away for speed (ALGOL a distant second).
The ALGOL programmer asked the APL programmer how it was done ... then
rewrote the ALGOL using a similar technique and was significantly faster
than the APL.
TL;DR: you think and program differently in APL!

Stan

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