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From: john@ghostwheel.unm.edu (John Prentice)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Languages for numerical programming (was Fortran etc.)
Message-ID: <1990Dec7.215050.5689@ariel.unm.edu>
Date: 7 Dec 90 21:50:50 GMT
References: <13457@chaph.usc.edu> <8960031@hpfcso.HP.COM> <1990Dec7.174243.29683@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> <16781@csli.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: John K. Prentice
Organization: University of New Mexico Math Dept., Albuquerque, NM
Lines: 23

In article <16781@csli.Stanford.EDU> poser@csli.stanford.edu (Bill Poser) writes:
>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?
>

I expect few scientists have been exposed to APL, so if you want to say
they use Fortran instead of APL because of tradition, probably to a
certain extent.  However, one of the major advantages of Fortran is
its standardization and portability, something that I expect APL is
lacking in.  Beyond that, I don't have a good answer because I don't
know hardly anything about APL.  Is this something we should be looking
at?

John Prentice
john@unmfys.unm.edu