APL programming language Help for students

Introduction of APL programming language

It was developed in 1960, this programming language influenced and inspired the development of spreadsheet, math packages and functional programming language. APL acronym stands for A programming language simply on the name of book called A programming langue. APL code looks like mathematical formula because APL uses symbols which are standard mathematical symbol.

Example of APL code

To assign values to vector X, we can use: X<- 1 2 3
X+4 This will increase the value of each element of vector X by 4
Hello world APL code 'Hello, world'
APL source code for calculating area of a circle with given radius
CircleList.radius <-10
CircleList.Area
314.1592654

APL programming resources

APL could be both compile and interpret, both compiler and interpreter exist in the market

APL interpreter can be downloaded from

• http://www.jsoftware.com/
• GNU APL: http://www.gnu.org/software/apl/

APL compiler can be downloaded from

commercial compiler was brought to market by STSC: STSC APL*PLUS

Link to download

APEX, a research APL compiler: Download link

How to learn APL?

Good programming tutorial on APL can be access using following link:

• http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AplLanguage
• http://www.microapl.com/apl/tutorial_contents.html
• http://aplwiki.com/PrimersAndTutorials
• http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/APL.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)