Newsgroups:   comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv1!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!jtsv16!itcyyz!yrloc!intern
From:         loc@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM (Leigh Clayton)
Subject:      Demise of the non-ASCII character set
Message-ID: <1992Mar25.233341.10806@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM>
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Date:         25 Mar 92 22:45:21 UT

 In response to gerth@watson.ibm.com (John Gerth), who decries the suggested
death of the APL character set.

 Don't despair, it has never been so healthy. The APL character set will be
part of IS 10646, and hopefully we'll manage to get it into Unicode too (pity
the US can't use the international standard, but that's another gripe). The new
standards for displays (X, Sunview, and Windows) all allow user fonts, TeX
supports APL fonts and so does Postscript. In fact, the current state of
affairs is that you can get an APL font basically anywhere you want one with a
little effort (sometimes more than a little) as long as you're using modern
equipment.

 Throughout APL's life its symbol set has been attacked, and I doubt this will
change, even when there are no operating pieces of equipment that can not use
it. It's a cultural thing. I was told once (by Joey Tuttle, I think) that he'd
had an oriental person tell him that he thought APL was remarkably easier to
use than other languages, because of all the nice symbols. We are more used to
invariant symbols combined in new ways than to new symbols, but for most people
that's a quickly passing phase. Of course, you still have to get them to expend
the effort, but I doubt the symbols are in reality a serious component of that
problem, at least in most cases. The 'non Computer Science' form of the
language (by which I mean it doesn't conform to current ideas about control
structures, typing, and so on) are likely much more of a barrier.

../Leigh

-----------------------------------------------------------
Leigh Clayton                     loc@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM
    -or-                        loc@ipsaint.ipsa.reuter.COM
