APL
Description
A symbolic notation language invented by Kenneth E. Iverson at IBM and first placed on the market in 1964, originally simply "A Programming Language" but some use the APL name as a class distinction and in that case it means "Array Processing Language". Because of the requirements for an extended character set for the language, APL was traditionally delivered in a hardware/software combination rather that as just a software development package, you can in fact still get keyboards specifically made for APL. Most IBM implementation of the language are APL2, an IBM developed superset that was primarily designed by Dr Jim Brown, improvements mostly relate to nested arrays. Original inventor Iverson left IBM and vent on implement a language called simply J that implemented what he saw as the future of APL by adding functional extensions, other language based on APL include A, A+, K and Nial.
A list of OS/2 implementations of APL
- APL2 - Commercial - Discontinued
- The APL c compiler project - APL to C translator - Open source - Current