I'll scan in Appendix D (one page Summary of Notation) as well because it gives a good idea of what the language was like at that time. I note that for "Definition of function F" it gives the "box with connecting arrows" notation from A Programming Language and the "Computer Notation" which is the del form.
1 2 3 instead of 1,2,3 is nice but not essential. The analogous situation in the modern dialects is that in J (and the SHARP APL family) there is no way to specify boxed array constants, e.g. 1 2;'abc' . In the APL2 family you'd say 1 2 'abc' ----- Original Message ----- From: Joey K Tuttle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Friday, July 18, 2008 19:12 Subject: Re: [Jchat] right to/of left -- what about left to right? To: Chat forum <[email protected]> > At 15:09 -0700 2008/07/18, Roger Hui wrote: > >http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Doc/Elementary_Functions_An_Algorithmic_Treatment#evaluation_order > > > >by Ken Iverson, 1966. > > Bravo! I recently borrowed a copy of "Elementary Functions ..." > from > Eugene McDonnell (because my own copy is squirreled away in a > box > somewhere - sigh) and made copies of Appendix A that you have > provided in scanned form. My idea was to retype that into the > wiki > with TeX for the formulas and perhaps I'll continue to do that > as a > more flexible form of the material. > > I think it is worth noting that the March 1, 1966 date that Ken > wrote > the foreword is well before the first/any working version of > APL\360 > and the APL notation in the book is from the earlier 7090 work > at > Stanford. The examples look a bit clumsy because of things which > have > evolved such as being able to enter a vector like 1 2 3 instead > of > 1,2,3 but the whole book is a good look at early thinking going > in to > evolving from a notation to a working interpreter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
