Jim Weigang's APL Information

Home

What's New?

Getting Started

APL On The Net

Articles & Programs

Other APL Sites

Miscellaneous

JimW's APL Information

APL is a programming language best known for its use of non-ASCII symbols, including a few Greek letters. It is a terse, general-purpose, high-level language created by Ken Iverson and colleagues at IBM in the 1960s. Whereas many computer languages began as tools for specifying machine instructions in a system- independent way, APL was designed as a powerful, mathematically-inspired executable notation unhindered by many of the inconvenient, limiting aspects of computer hardware. APL's primitive functions, which apply to multidimensional arrays, have loops built into them, saving the programmer from having to write many of the loops that are required in other languages. Operations such as sorting, searching, and selection are built into the language as primitives. As a consequence, APL programs are much shorter, and are easier to write, debug, and modify than programs in scalar-oriented languages. APL's interactive environment encourages experimentation and facilitates rapid prototyping and modification of applications. APL is currently available for a wide variety of computers, ranging from micros to mainframes.
More...
Contents
Getting Started Resources for APL novices, including my APL Notes book, free APL interpreters, and pointers to some tutorial articles on this site.
APL On The Net About comp.lang.apl and the APL-L mailing list, including advice for first-time posters. Info on how APL characters can be represented using keywords.
Articles and Programs Various articles and programs that I've written, for both comp.lang.apl and printed publications. Most of the articles are aimed at teaching some aspect of APL, and many of the programs are useful utilities.
Other APL Sites Links to other sites related to APL or its kin (J, Nial, etc.). User groups, publications, and APL developers.
Miscellaneous All the rest.