Auwvax.310
net.lang.apl
utzoo!decvax!harpo!uwvax!greg
Wed Apr  7 16:00:30 1982
APL expressions over the net
I definitely agree with rabbit!ark on the matter of how to write APL
expressions in net.lang.apl.  There are two cases to be considered:

1) APL expressions primarily intended for human consumption;
2) LONG apl functions and/or variables and/or workspaces which should be
   transmitted over the net in machine-readable form.

First the first category:
When I'm on the receiving end I prefer (by a country mile)
pigeon-English APL;  I find it distracting and annoying to have to
translate from .ro .so or @R @A to something meaningful to me.  On the
other hand,
FOO := ( FOO noteq ' ')/ iota rho FOO
doesn't require an extra level of translation before I start to figure
out what the expression is really doing.  On the sending end I have a
slight preference for @R @I, etc., since my fingers know where all the
APL symbols are on a regular apl terminal.  On balance I think that for
human-human communication pigeon is the best.  I think that upper case
for variables, ascii when it is the same, and lower case for unique apl
symbols is the most understandable.  For the really funny apl symbols,
maybe the official IBM word or words would be best:
2 4 3 1 2 slopecircle (5 rho 2)rho iota 32
'slopecircle' really isn't funny enough - 'transpose' should probably
be used in its place in the above example.  I'm thinking of things like
the various shoes, lamp, etc.
Of course, all of this is a matter of personal preference, rather
than an attempt to impose a network standard, which I don't think we
should do for the human-human communication.

Second the second category:
For machine to machine communication (apl that is meant to be used rather
than understood), an arcane @ or .xx notation would probably be best,
and an effort at standardization is probably in order.
                               - Greg J.
                                 U Wis - Madison

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