software-assisted problem solver... I think I've found a reason to
update my résumé.
Morten Kromberg wrote:
(leaving the un-adable subject line intact to keep this stream separate from
the one about symbols)
BobGraf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I sincerely believe that APL, and its successor, J, have both failed in
popularity for reasons having nothing to do with technical issues, but
rather with issues related to sales and marketing of the APL and J
products.
I think it is true that marketing of APL and J has been less successful than
it could have been. But the reasons are quite complex, and in my opinion
they have little to do with the popular myths regarding character sets, lack
of open source versions, and other ideas that have been suggested as "THE"
reason why the languages have not become more popular.
One big mistake that I think we have been making for the last 20 years is to
continue to think of APL and J as languages which should be competing
head-to-head with languages like C. This sort of thinking did make SOME
sense back in the 70's and 80's, when all software development was a
pioneering activity and the APL environments were very competitive in a
general sense. But nobody wants to be prototyping their own General Ledger
system any more, although lots of large companies did this with APL in the
70's. The APL market lost a lot of value when many of these products matured
and became commodities (and left the mainframe). But this is how it should
be: The infantry has arrived to secure the beachhead, and the special forces
move on. If I had to maintain that Ledger system today, I would have quit
anyway. This shrinking of this "unnatural" market says nothing about the
true value of these notations.
To me, APL/J/K programmers allowing themselves to be depressed by the fact
that their language has not replaced C would be like rocket engineers
retiring from NASA after deciding that rockets have no future: For
inter-continental bulk shipments, the market share is pitiful when compared
to container vessels.
The "(mostly) infix functional array languages" will NEVER become the
software engineers tool of choice. I personally believe that they will
become VERY much more popular than they are today, but mostly because
"software-assisted problem solving" will grow in importance relative to
"programming", which is becoming an activity for "unskilled" labour.
Our languages appeal to people who like to solve interesting problems. The
languages appeal less to people who are out to make quick and fast money
selling things at a higher price than they can buy them ("business people"),
or to people who like to think about the beauty, generality and completeness
of information-processing algorithms ("computer scientists"), or to people
who like to think of programming as an activity which can be compared to
pouring concrete ("software engineers").
The fact that our communities have an over-population of "problem solvers"
who are willing to depart from the beaten path DOES cause a fundamental
problem with respect to marketing, because the problem solvers are only
infrequently motivated to explain their solutions to business folks,
computer scientists and software engineers - as they do not easily relate to
these folks and feel uncomfortable in their presence. Also because "finding
the beaten path" is one of the most important things that businesses
generally want to buy, and we have little wisdom to offer on that front.
"Most people would sooner die than think. In fact, they do." - Bertrand
Russell
This doesn't mean that I don't think there are people using Java, VB or C#
(or Python, Ruby, etc) who could not benefit from using APL, J or K. There
are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people out there that we should be
trying to attract. Increasing our market share by one or two orders of
magnitude is realistic. But we should never expect "popularity". Only
interesting times and for those who focus on money, handsome profitability
when ideas are brought to the market just ahead of their time :-).
I believe that current market conditions favour significant growth for
technologies which are enable to involve "domain experts" more directly in
the software development process. We've been doing this for 40+ years now
and have some real value to add. I'm placing my personal bets on APL because
it has the broadest commercial and technical base from which to grow, but I
feel that the entire family of languages should have a good decade or two
ahead.
Morten Kromberg
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--
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|\/| Randy A MacDonald | APL: If you can say it, it's done.. (ram)
|/\| ramacd <at> nbnet.nb.ca |
|\ | | The only real problem with APL is that
BSc(Math) UNBF'83 | it is "still ahead of its time."
Sapere Aude | - Morten Kromberg
Natural Born APL'er |
-----------------------------------------------------(INTP)----{ gnat }-
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