Hi Jürgen: As promised a brief update note.
On a clean install of macOS Mojave 10.14.6 I confirm that using git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/apl.git <https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/apl.git> just works. And with the default settings the Terminal waltz builds clean. And APL executes. My hardware is an Early 2009 Mac Pro and so far there has never been a need to patch the installer from 2009 Snow Leopard 10.6 thru to 2018 Mojave 10.14. I did apply a patch to the firmware to make it a 5,1 from the original 4,1. Will look into whether it’s reasonable to install Catalina and Bug Sur. respect Peter