I remember colleagues competing for the most 'interesting' one-liner in APL that actually did something useful, in university. I wrote several different kinds of simulator, one of which generated APL code on the fly that was then executed... plus a database-or-two. I've been actively collecting APL memorabilia and books for years now... if I could find an MCM/70 it would be awesome...
From: "cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org> To: "cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org> Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2021 6:22:39 PM Subject: Re: APL\360 On 1/14/21 5:44 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > I was just poking around the computerhistory.org website, searching for Knuth > stuff. > > The second or third hit when I search for "Knuth" is this one: > https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-apl-programming-language-source-code/ . > It's not just about APL, it actually has a downloadable copy of the source > code. And it points to an executable version, apparently a packaged up > Hercules running that code. > > Nice. I'll have to give it a try. I recall Neil Lincoln (he of CDC/ETA) relating that he taught APL to his kids and his wife (APL was pretty much a natural for the STAR) as a first programming language. I took some time to learn it fairly well, but never really had any opportunity to use it much, so it's gone into the memory dustbin of old never-used languages of my brain. A co-worker back when would never use the name of the book or the abbreviation. He always referred to it as "that Iverson language" or "TIL". And it's comparatively easy to write short, perfectly opaque code in APL; probably more so than other common languages. --Chuck
