Ruins of forgotten empires: APL languages

The most common "perform operation on bulk data simultaneously" language in wide use today is SQL. Joe Celko coined a phrase for this: think in sets. Not in loops, not in linear instructions -- but in sets, being transformed into other sets. It's a very powerful way of thinking. Most of the time, you don't need ordered evaluation and so loops are imposing unnecessary guarantees on you. On the more general problem of our collective historical ignorance ... yes. That…

I used APL professionally for about ten years. I even have a picture with Ken Iverson, the language's inventor, when I was 19. While I still programmed in assembly, Forth and C, I was one of the "APL guys" at work. The language changes the way you solve problems computationally. It changes your focus away from the mechanics programming to inmerse your mind in the problem domain. It is hard to understand this without working with APL for a year…

What's changed since the last time this was posted: APL is now generally free. J[1] is GPL. The newest version of k is closed-source, but still freely available for personal use from shakti[2], and there is also an independent AGPL implementation[3]. Dyalog APL[4] is closed-source but free for personal use; and, finally, GNU APL[5] has always been open-source, but it's matured quite a bit. Whatever your choice, you have a freely usable option. 1: https://www.jsoftware.com/ 2: https://shakti.com/ 3…

Prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9707075