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5 years ago Adám

Which languages are on-topic?

All APL dialects or only Dyalog APL?

How about J?

K?

This will also affect the design and logo of the site.

Top Answer
5 years ago RikedyP

APL and APL-like languages (e.g. J, K and Q), along with array programming in any language (e.g. NumPy, Julia, and MatLab) (especially if in comparison to APLs).

Answer #2
5 years ago Adám

APL only

In line with APL Wiki only APLs are addressed directly, with related topics being relegated to content about them in the context of main-line APL.

This disallows things like J, K, and NumPy.

While this might lead to less content being included, it’ll probable lessen the noise ratio, as non-APL content isn’t generally useful the the APLer, though it might be interesting.

It also makes UI choices regard syntax colouring, the custom language bar, and the default TIO language easier.

Answer #3
5 years ago Jack Douglas

There are only 227 questions tagged apl on SO. There are also 368 tagged j and 46 tagged k.

That being so, it would be good to err on the side of wider scope. From what I can tell, although the syntax looks very different in each case, both J[1] and K[2] are closely related to APL. Likewise Q and LYaPAS though those look like they may be very niche.

The real question, which I can’t answer myself, is whether expertise and interest in APL is likely to denote expertise and interest of some degree in the other areas. If that is the case I hope you’ll include them in scope.


  1. The J programming language, developed in the early 1990s by Kenneth E. Iverson and Roger Hui, is an array programming language based primarily on APL (also by Iverson).

    ↩︎
  2. K is a proprietary array processing programming language developed by Arthur Whitney and commercialized by Kx Systems. The language serves as the foundation for kdb+, an in-memory, column-based database, and other related financial products. The language, originally developed in 1993, is a variant of APL and contains elements of Scheme. Advocates of the language emphasize its speed, facility in handling arrays, and expressive syntax.

    ↩︎
Answer #4
5 years ago Adám

Dyalog only

The benefit of this is that there’ll be no confusion as to what code works where, and it’ll be very easy to make design choices for the site, language bar, and TIO language.

The downside is that there’ll be less content.

A possibility is to include close Dyalog “clones”, like ngn/apl and dzaima/APL.

5 years
RikedyP replying to Jack Douglas — Saturday, 21st Nov 2020 15:45

Looks good to me

12 days
Jack Douglas replying to RikedyP — Monday, 9th Nov 2020 21:17

I tweaked it instead hope that’s ok

11 hours
RikedyP — Monday, 9th Nov 2020 10:43

I am unable to add a tag to my post? - Oops I also missed this bit of the convo - feel free to delete that post if you like

13 hours
Jack Douglas replying to Adám — Sunday, 8th Nov 2020 21:52

OK, I see what you mean

Adám replying to Jack Douglas — Sunday, 8th Nov 2020 21:52

Re: restyle; I think --rgb-black is fine.

Adám replying to Jack Douglas — Sunday, 8th Nov 2020 21:48

Well, it kind of is a proper answer, because it implies that we’ve decided on that scope.

Jack Douglas — Sunday, 8th Nov 2020 21:46

@RikedyP, re: your answer, I’ve added the banner (it needs a restyle but the text is there). I also flagged your answer as it doesn’t really belong on this question — if you post it as a new ‘Meta’ post (like this post), it will be useful for posterity.

4 days
Adám replying to RikedyP — Wednesday, 4th Nov 2020 15:12

And so too, if we want to go “only APLs”.

3 hours
RikedyP — Wednesday, 4th Nov 2020 12:24

New tryapl.org look coming soon, still purple, but if we want to go “array languages” the main branding problem here is we need a logo

5 months
Jack Douglas replying to Adám — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 14:27

they are

5 hours
Adám replying to Jack Douglas — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 09:39

Yeah, that makes sense if this is the route we choose to go. Still deliberating…

Adám — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 09:36

Are the numbers global to TA?

Jack Douglas — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 09:35

which makes me think the link here should be https://topanswers.xyz?q=961 rather than https://topanswers.xyz/apl?q=961

Jack Douglas — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 09:34

changing the description is easy, changing the url is painful if done further down the line, because of broken links

Jack Douglas — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 09:33

there is also the option to have apl.ta, but a longer description, like Array Programming Languages (with an ‘s’ as you suggest)

Adám replying to Jack Douglas — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 09:33

We could, as it is indeed used like that (APLs = either array programming langauages or APL dialects), or we could change it, but to what? Array Programming is a bit long…

Jack Douglas replying to Adám — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 09:31

Happy I think, if that was what you wanted. I think you are suggesting we’d keep the name APL, right?

Adám — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 09:23
Array programming In computer science, array programming refers to solutions which allow the application of operations to an entire set of values at once. Such solutions are commonly used in scientific and engineering settings.
Adám — Monday, 8th Jun 2020 09:22

@Jack How would you feel about doing a super-broad scope here, taking “APL” to mean Array Programming Languages?

8 days
Adám — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:28

Dyalog definitely has the most active community.

Adám — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:28

Yes, in fact, MicroAPL (the vendor for APLX) referred its APL customers to Dyalog.

Jack Douglas — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:28

If one particular variant is the most popular we can of course still make that the default for TIO, even if we also allow others

Jack Douglas — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:27

Dyalog seems to be the most well known variant, skim reading Wikipedia articles — especially now APLX is no longer on sale?

Adám — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:25

Until now, they’ve mostly differed in repertoire of built-ins, and for some, the swapped meaning of two half-built-ins. However, lately, some dialects have extended built-ins in various mutually incompatible ways, with the core meaning being the same.

Jack Douglas — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:23

how different are the other APL variants, and how popular are they?

Jack Douglas — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:21

oh and we can add the soft keyboard defaults to that list now I think of it!

Adám replying to Jack Douglas — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:20

Yup, just wrote that up.

Jack Douglas — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:19

keeping them separate has advantages with default syntax highlighting, TIO code language etc too

Jack Douglas — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:19

I was mainly wondering if there is a lower size limit for that to be practical

Jack Douglas — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:18

cross-linked communities were made for this sort of relationship between topics so might be the better answer

Jack Douglas — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:17

I’m happy to defer to your choice in this though

Jack Douglas replying to Adám — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:17

So individual questions would not likely cover more than one — but that wouldn’t stop separation by tag

Adám — Sunday, 31st May 2020 10:11

@Jack Indeed the current state of the APL Orchard chat room on SE is that everything APL-related is on-topic. However, for a Q&A site, I’m not sure how much sense it makes. Actually, he syntax of J and K is more or less identical to that of APL, whereas they are all different from each other in spelling of most things, in the tooling, and in the array model. The problem is that not much advice is generally applicable to more than one at a time.

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