Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
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From: Richard J. Gaylord <gaylord@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: Re:  What is an APL language?
References: <921118054415_70530.1226_DHP44-1@CompuServe.COM>
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Subject: Re: Re:  What is an APL language?
From: Mike Kent, 70530.1226@CompuServe.COM
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 05:44:16 GMT
In article <921118054415_70530.1226_DHP44-1@CompuServe.COM> Mike Kent,
70530.1226@CompuServe.COM writes:


what seems to distinguish APL from other
>applicative languages is the centrality of arrays, and in particular the
>rich set of manipulative and extractive functions which produce new
>arrays from old without explicit recalculation of item values.  To a
>degree not possible in most other languages, APL is "about" shape, rank,
>and lately depth --
>

===============

 i think this is correct except that  APL isn't really an applicative
language  and Ken Iverson agrees saying in a back issue of VECTOR  that 
J  incorporates those functional features lacking in APL. 

speaking ofwhich, i posted awhile back a translation of the "What is J?"
tutorial by Lee Dickey into Mathematica showing how to do things like
those mentioned above (rank, shape, depth) in Mathematica. If anyone has
a copy of that could you send it to me. i lost the file in a near-fatal
system crash.  thanks.
