About APL
USMS digital archives are stored in an unadorned state. In other words, they have no enhancement that represents a commitment to any computer language or technology (except for some simple html enhancement).
We process our archives for on-line presentation using a language called APL. This language has been chosen because it is a very powerful language and the Chairman of the H&A Committee (Carl House) is skilled with it. Ray Polivka [polivkar@juno.com] taught APL internally at IBM for 20 years and since retirement from IBM teaches APL to employees of other corporations. When asked for some words on APL, he offered this. "APL is especially effective not only because of its rich and sophisticated mathematical facilities but also because of its conciseness and consistency. These last characteristics are rare in programming languages. Its original design was done with the user and the application developer in mind. This makes APL a very fine prototyping tool. Today a programmer or nonprogrammer user can write an APL program and run it on a vast range of computers from large mainframes, servers to the smallest PCs under a variety of operating systems such as Windows XP-9x, 3.1 DOS, OS/2, Linux, Unix, MVT, MFT, Solaris. All of that is transparent to the APL program. Yes, of course when there is particular hardware to be used that is factored in gracefully. The APL world is a dynamic place today." Ray goes on to say "From my personal experience, I can tell you that there is APL use at IBM, Massachusetts General, Lincoln Life, Connecticut General, Morgan Stanley, Hartford Life, ICGM, AllState, and Cognos." Carl adds SoftMed Systems, Pacific Life, Ryder Systems, CheckFree, The Rouse Company, and Prudential Financial.
Microsoft announced on February 13 the availability of software it has spent $2 billion developing. This software focusses on the Internet and predictions are it will change life in America. An example of its use is this: When you are driving home during rush hour, the navigational system in your car will be able to check current driving conditions to find your fastest way home.
Microsoft has announced that this software will allow developers to work in any of 20 specific languages. The languages are listed alphabetically, so APL is first on the list.
Here's the story: www.qkw.com/refer/dotnetstrategy.htm#apl. At the bottom of the story you click to see it on the NYT website.
