Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!goanna!ok
From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Languages for numerical programming (was Fortran etc.)
Message-ID: <4474@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Date: 10 Dec 90 08:02:32 GMT
References: <8960031@hpfcso.HP.COM> <1158:Dec923:58:0490@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 35

In article <1158:Dec923:58:0490@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>, brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
> Seriously, APL has the same problem as Ada: it's too big.

Odd.  The APL reference card I used to have fitted everything I needed
to know on two side of an A4 sheet.

> By the time
> you learn how to multiply matrices in APL, you can write a complete
> matrix-manipulation package in Fortran or any other language.

BEGIN lesson.
    Suppose you want to multiply B and C and put the result in A.
    For ELEMENTWISE multiplication:
	A <- B x C
	(<- is the left arrow character and x is "times"; any binary
	operator will work like this.)
    For MATRIX multiplication:
	A <- B +.x C
    ("+.x" is three characters: "plus dot times".  You can put together
    other kinds of multiplication such as "min dot max".)
    You use the same notation for integer, float, and complex, and
    for scalars, vectors, matrices, ... 
    There's more, but that'll get you started.
END lesson.

If you can write a complete matrix-manipulation package in Fortran in
the time it took to read that, you're *really* good.  If you can do it
in COBOL in that time, you are superhumanly good.

Of course I'll grant you that people _are_ confused by a language which
uses so many mathematical symbols...

-- 
The Marxists have merely _interpreted_ Marxism in various ways;
the point, however, is to _change_ it.		-- R. Hochhuth.