On: Dyalog APL 18.2

[jodrellblank]

Dyalog APL lets you call to the .Net Framework almost directly, e.g.

          ⎕using←'System.Diagnostics,System.dll'
          st←⎕new Stopwatch
          st.Start
    <pause>
          st.Stop
          st.Elapsed
    00:00:03.5493601

That gives you access to most things C# can access, presumably System.Data.DataTable and database access, or P/Invoke to C libraries? It also supports the other way around, writing :Class-es and using File -> Export to make .Net DLLs for other .Net languages to import and use (with Dyalog APL installed and licensed to run the code inside, mind you).

e.g. text encoding:

          ⎕using,←⊂'System.Text'
          Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes (⊂'hello')
    104 0 101 0 108 0 108 0 111 0

(.Net calls UTF-16 "Unicode").

Web services: From https://www.dyalog.com/tools/web-applications.htm it can be an ASP.Net language, or with "MiServer, A development platform for web applications written in APL" or several others.

There's the classic ⎕CMD and ⎕SH which run a string in the Windows command interpreter, or Linux shell, and get the text result:

          ⎕cmd 'echo hello'
    hello

Seems to have various support for ActiveX and COM integration, too. I've never used any of this in anger or in production, but it surprised me how much integration it has.

> "Given this release of APL introduces support for shebang scripts I'm thinking the ecosystem of integration isn't great but I'm happy to be wrong."

This, specifically writing like a Python script, has been a sticking point for Dyalog APL for a while, I understand. APL the language and way of using it predates filesystems and was traditionally more like a self-enclosed virtual machine; you power it up, run your code inside it, and then save its running state to disk in a proprietary binary workspace blob that only it can read back again. And when filesystems came along, ⍴↑⍨⍥⊤⍎ weren't very convenient to write and save in scripts for a long time either.