Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!yale.edu!ira.uka.de!chx400!bernina!hoesel
From: hoesel@igc.ethz.ch (Frans van Hoesel)
Subject: Re: APL and IDL
Message-ID: <1992Nov12.185446.7282@bernina.ethz.ch>
Sender: news@bernina.ethz.ch (USENET News System)
Organization: University of Groningen, the Netherlands
References: <16946@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 18:54:46 GMT
Lines: 37

In article <16946@umd5.umd.edu> jph@astro.umd.edu (J. Patrick Harrington) writes:
>
>  When I first looked at IDL (Interactive Data Language), which is becoming
>the language of choice among astronomers for data reduction and image processing
>tasks, I was struck by the similarity to features of APL. In the latest manual
>they make it quite explicit: From the "IDL User's Guide" Version 3.0, Sept 1992:
>
[removed]
>You see that  findgen <-> floating index generator <-> iota <-> i.
>
>It is interesting how the IDL developers acknowledge their debt to APL. The adoption
>of the ideas in APL is a good thing for users, but probably a bad thing for APL, as
>some of these features will no longer be unique to APL. Of course APL (and J) can
>do so much more, but the potential audience for the "more exotic" features is not
>as broad.
>		    
>							  Pat Harrington


so does my program for processing NMR data (it has been used extensively
in astronomy to, but not by many people)
My program started without any knowledge of apl. As my program is now in a
state where it is being rewritten completely, I did peek into J and APL
Some usefull things are there, but most of them were already present
in the language. 
Array processing is not exclusive for APL or J. Its a very useful concept
in all areas where data is mostly stored in arrays
(in case of NMR and astronomy: spectra)

-- frans


-- 
===========================================================================
===  frans van hoesel               scientific research programmer      ===
===  hoesel@igc.ethz.ch             seeking a JOB in europa             ===
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