APL since 1978

Abstract

The Evolution of APL , the HOPL I paper by Falkoff and Iverson on APL, recounted the fundamental design principles which shaped the implementation of the APL language in 1966, and the early uses and other influences which shaped its first decade of enhancements. In the 40 years that have elapsed since HOPL I, several dozen APL implementations have come and gone. In the first decade or two, interpreters were typically born and buried along with the hardware or operating system that they were created for. More recently, the use of C as an implementation language provided APL interpreters with greater longevity and portability. APL started its life on IBM mainframes which were time-shared by multiple users. As the demand for computing resources grew and costs dropped, APL first moved in-house to mainframes, then to mini - and micro -computers. Today, APL runs on PCs and tablets, Apples and Raspberry Pis, smartphones and watches. The operating systems, and the software application platforms that APL runs on, have evolved beyond recognition. Tools like database systems have taken over many of the tasks that were initially implemented in APL or provided by the APL system, and new capabilities like parallel hardware have also changed the focus of design and implementation efforts through the years. The first wave of significant language enhancements occurred shortly after HOPL I, resulting in so-called second-generation APL systems. The most important feature of the second generation is the addition of general arrays—in which any item of an array can be another array—and a number of new functions and operators aligned with, if not always motivated by, the new data structures. The majority of implementations followed IBM’s path with APL2 “floating” arrays; others aligned themselves with SHARP APL and “grounded” arrays. While the APL2 style of APL interpreters came to dominate the mainstream of the APL community, two new cousins of APL descended from the SHARP APL family tree: J (created by Iverson and Hui) and k (created by Arthur Whitney). We attempt to follow a reasonable number of threads through the last 40 years, to identify the most important factors that have shaped the evolution of APL. We will discuss the details of what we believe are the most significant language features that made it through the occasionally unnatural selection imposed by the loss of habitats that disappeared with hardware, software platforms, and business models. The history of APL now spans six decades. It is still the case, as Falkoff and Iverson remarked at the end of the HOPL I paper, that: Although this is not the place to discuss the future, it should be remarked that the evolution of APL is far from finished.