
Ruins of forgotten empires: APL languages (2013) - lelf
http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/ruins-of-forgotten-empires-apl-languages/
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earenndil
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/](https://www.jsoftware.com/)

2: [https://shakti.com/](https://shakti.com/)

3:
[https://bitbucket.org/ngn/k/src/master/](https://bitbucket.org/ngn/k/src/master/)

4: [https://www.dyalog.com/](https://www.dyalog.com/)

5: [https://www.gnu.org/software/apl/](https://www.gnu.org/software/apl/)

~~~
kick
For anyone with even the slightest curiosity or desire to learn APL:

Please check out J!

J's "labs" feature is probably the single greatest resource for learning APL
there is right now, aside from being instructed in person. Some of them in the
current versions of J are even from Ken Iverson, one of the most brilliant
people to have influenced computer science, Turing Award winner, former
Harvard professor, and of course, the person who first brought APL to the rest
of the world. Most of the new ones were written by people who are _also_
brilliant.

There are even iOS and Android apps if you have bits and pieces of free time
that aren't really suited to taking out your laptop or desktop, and they're
fully-featured, including a web server, the stuff needed for dataviz, labs,
everything, really.

------
fxj
A very nice introduction for mere mortals to J is here:

Fly Straight, Dammit!

[http://www.petecorey.com/blog/2019/08/12/fly-straight-
dammit...](http://www.petecorey.com/blog/2019/08/12/fly-straight-dammit/)

and here:

A Shallow Introduction to the K Programming Language

[https://web.archive.org/web/20130801233812/http://www.kuro5h...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130801233812/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/14/22741/791)

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dang
A thread from 2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9707075](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9707075)

Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6115727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6115727)

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jtth
The comments are descriptive.

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LessDmesg
Added to my bookmarks, thanks. I especially respect the guy after he lashed
out at the PC virtue signaller in the comments. How insufferable do people
need to get to bitch about gender in an article about programming languages?

~~~
rdlw
Really respectable, to claim not to want "oversensitive swine" reading his
work and in the same thread to be so offended by a comment about his use of
language as to reply with

> You may now go fuck yourself with a carrot scraper in whatever gender-free
> orifice you have available.

Regardless of belief about the appropriateness of phrases like 'real men', I
reserve my respect for people that don't resort to dehumanizing name-calling
at the insinuation that they may have said something wrong.

