Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
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From: sam@csi.jpl.nasa.gov (Sam Sirlin)
Subject: Re: APL acceptance
Message-ID: <1992May13.160200.17164@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>
Originator: sam@kalessin
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Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
References:  <920513071539_70530.1226_CHC41-1@CompuServe.COM>
Date: Wed, 13 May 1992 16:02:00 GMT
Lines: 27


In article <920513071539_70530.1226_CHC41-1@CompuServe.COM>, Mike Kent <70530.1226@CompuServe.COM> writes:
|> In article <1992May12.013709.3279@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>, sam@csi.jpl.nasa.gov
|> (Sam Sirlin) writes (a propos barriers to APL acceptance):
|> > Lack of a way to group functions ...
|> 
|> Mainframe APL2 has two ways to address this problem:  
|> 
|>    1.  Grouping variables.  A character matrix holding one name per line

This sounds just like the old )GROUP, which I miss from STS..., uh,
Manugistics' implementations. 

|>    2.  []NA (packaged workspaces).  This is the nifty way, an advance in 
|>        pure APL technology on the same level as generalized arrrays.  You

This sounds great! I knew that Sharp had  packages, but (at least from
my interpretation of old documentation) they didn't sound nearly as
good, merely another implementation of )GROUP that required packing
and unpacking...  
But who has access to an IBM mainframe any more? Is there any danger
of this getting into the ISO standard?

-- 
Sam Sirlin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory         sam@kalessin.jpl.nasa.gov

