EDITORIAL: APL – USP or RIP?

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 3

Most readers of this editorial will be APL professionals. You probably came across APL a few years ago, tried it on an application or two and found that you liked what you saw. Some of you may have been so excited by the power that it gave you, that you felt obliged to shout “Eureka” and tell your colleagues about the new panacea. Others may, like myself, have stood up in public places and exclaimed:

“FORTRAN is dead; long live APL!”

Why then, several years later, are people being awarded grants to develop computer-independent FORTRAN subroutines for graphics, when we were swapping APL graphics functions from IBM mainframes to 8-bit micros years ago? Why is APL the only computer language whose users can be (or even want to be) gathered once a year under one roof? And why are we continually being asked to defend our choice of APL by people who haven’t taken the time to understand what APL can do?

Over the past year, several articles in VECTOR have discussed factors that have held back APL’s progress. It cannot help to use an obscure charcter set that is only available on a small percentage of relatively expensive equipment. The APL community cannot hope to compete with the mass of publicity on BASIC that bombards computer beginners. APL will never be introduced to schoolchildren when no teachers have heard of it. Computer departments at colleges and universities cannot reasonably claim to offer a broad syllabus when none of their libraries subscribe to VECTOR.

However these explanations are merely symptoms of the major problem facing APL. The underlying failure of APL is a marketing failure, and its solution has to be a marketing solution.

Like any other product, APL has to force itself onto the market. We need to establish APL’s Unique Selling Proposition – the key advantage that distinguishes APL from the mass of computer software now available. The strength of that USP will determine whether APL can become established as a mainstream computer language, or whether it will fade away as its successful applications are replaced by packages.

Only the APL community can define the USP and only we can initiate the required publicity campaign based on it. A powerful USP will force the major companies to offer APL as standard on their equipment at a sensible price. Without it the future of APL depends on the few people with the expertise and interest to develop APL interpreters for new systems.

Here then are some ideas that may spark the debate:

• APL is the only tool that allows engineers, mathematicians and scientists to define complex, new calculations precisely and effectively.
• APL is the language that lets you overcome the limits of your software packages.
• APL is the only language that I actually enjoy programming in.
• APL is the language for prototyping, for innovation and for developing new applications.

Other, more experienced APLers will have different and no doubt better ideas. The future availability of APL depends on our successfully pooling those ideas into a clear statement. Without its USP, APL will surely fade away and die.

VECTOR – new look¶

By now you will probably have noticed the new typeface used in this issue of VECTOR. We hope this will make the journal more legible, and welcome readers comments

Dates for future issues of VECTOR¶