Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!convex!constellation!midway.ecn.uoknor.edu!rmtodd
From: rmtodd@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu (Richard Michael Todd)
Subject: Re: APL and IDL
Sender: usenet@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu (Usenet Administrator)
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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 01:54:08 GMT
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Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
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jph@astro.umd.edu (J. Patrick Harrington) writes:

>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

These features haven't been unique to APL for quite some time.  Ever looked at
MATLAB?  If not, do so.  Much of the MATLAB language is quite obviously 
inspired by APL; if you know APL, you should have little trouble with 
MATLAB. 

Face it, if you've got a good language with lots of nifty new ideas, other
language designers are going to use these new ideas.  Just look at how much
many modern list-processing language constructs owe to Lisp, or how many 
languages now have associative arrays as built-in types.  Consider it a sign
of how smart the orignal designers of these features are.  
-- 
Richard Todd   rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us  or  rmtodd@essex.ecn.uoknor.edu  
                        or   rmtodd@servalan.servalan.com
