Going back a bit before where Eric begins in his talk-- Ken told me that the reason he extended APL as an array language was due to his work that is described in his PHD thesis based on his work with Wassily Leontief the economist who’s input–output model of the world economy which informed the Marshall plan and earned Leontief the Nobel prize. Leontief's model required large matrices and Iverson worked on programs that could solve matrice algebra on the Harvard Mark IV computer.
I hope some economist has a model to address the post-Covid economic recovery. > On Sep 21, 2021, at 7:00 PM, Jose Mario Quintana > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Eric Iverson — The Array Cast > <https://www.arraycast.com/episodes/episode10-eric-iverson> > > 59:55 > 1:05:37 > > > On Sat, Aug 21, 2021 at 5:40 PM Roger Hui <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Sorry, no. To my knowledge, only Ken and I know. Ken's not telling and >> neither am I. >> >> There _is_ more information about the name in Section 10.2 of *APL Since >> 1978 <https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3386319>*. >> >> >> >> On Sat, Aug 21, 2021 at 1:01 PM Jose Mario Quintana < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>>> Dr. Iverson recommended I read "The Book of J” by Harold Bloom when I >> was >>> asking about the name he chose for his programming language. >>>> >>> >>> Perhaps it was an instance of telepathy since, >>> >>> ' >>> I studied this interpreter for about a week for its organization and >>> programming style; and on Sunday, August 27, 1989, at about four o’clock >> in >>> the afternoon, wrote the first line of code that became the >> implementation >>> described in this document. >>> >>> The name “J” was chosen a few minutes later, when it became necessary to >>> save the interpreter source file for the first time. >>> >>> — Roger Hui, Remembering Ken Iverson, 2004 >>> ' >>> >>> After decades of true stories [0] Roger might be kind enough to shed more >>> light on how the name was chosen in addition to 'Why "J"? It is easy to >>> type.' (Oh well, apparently, we know at least pretty well when the name >>> was chosen.) >>> >>> [0] [Jprogramming] Hi. (jsoftware.com) >>> <http://www.jsoftware.com/pipermail/programming/2009-October/016557.html >>> >>> >>> >>> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
