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From: poser@csli.Stanford.EDU (Bill Poser)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Languages for numerical programming (was Fortran etc.)
Message-ID: <16781@csli.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 7 Dec 90 20:22:59 GMT
References: <13457@chaph.usc.edu> <8960031@hpfcso.HP.COM> <1990Dec7.174243.29683@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Reply-To: poser@csli.stanford.edu (Bill Poser)
Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U.
Lines: 12

If you numerical programming folk like Fortran because of its
facilities for handling multi-dimensional arrays and builtin complex
numbers, how come you don't use APL? APL has been around a good long time,
exists for quite a few machines, and makes Fortran's mathematical
facilities look like a joke. I'm curious as to whether the use of
Fortran rather than APL is a matter of tradition (together with the
fact that until recently APL has used a special character set - this, of
course, wouldn't have been terribly difficult to change if there had
been sufficient interest), or whether numerical programmers have
seriously considered it and rejected it. What say you?

Bill