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Comparison of APL dialects: Difference between revisions
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Dialects offer a variety of ways to create [[function]]s and [[operator]]s. The three major branches are [[defined function]]s, which use a header declaring the function and argument names, [[anonymous function]]s such as [[dfn]]s, which also consist of a list of statements but have no header and use fixed argument names, and [[tacit programming|tacit function]]s, which are created by manipulating existing functions with no reference to [[argument]]s. | Dialects offer a variety of ways to create [[function]]s and [[operator]]s. The three major branches are [[defined function]]s, which use a header declaring the function and argument names, [[anonymous function]]s such as [[dfn]]s, which also consist of a list of statements but have no header and use fixed argument names, and [[tacit programming|tacit function]]s, which are created by manipulating existing functions with no reference to [[argument]]s. | ||
Defined functions were the dominant form for most of APL's history, with only some niche forms based on [[direct definition (notation)|direct definition notation]] appearing in the 1980s: the [[direct definition (operator)|direct definition operator]] in [[NARS]] and a library to translate this notation to defined functions in [[SHARP APL]]. Function assignment, a necessary feature for tacit programming, began to appear in the 1980s, such as in [[Dyalog APL]] version 4.0 in 1986. However, [[train]]s, which make larger-scale tacit programming feasible, were not introduced to APL until around 2010. Dyalog's [[dfn]]s were introduced in 1996 to slow initial adoption; nearly all new dialects of the 2010s and later support a similar syntax. Because of the widespread use of dfns, several of these dialects no longer support a traditional function definition notation. | Defined functions were the dominant form for most of APL's history, with only some niche forms based on [[direct definition (notation)|direct definition notation]] appearing in the 1980s: the [[direct definition (operator)|direct definition operator]] in [[NARS]] and a library to translate this notation to defined functions in [[SHARP APL]]. [[Function assignment]], a necessary feature for tacit programming, began to appear in the 1980s, such as in [[Dyalog APL]] version 4.0 in 1986. However, [[train]]s, which make larger-scale tacit programming feasible, were not introduced to APL until around 2010. Dyalog's [[dfn]]s were introduced in 1996 to slow initial adoption; nearly all new dialects of the 2010s and later support a similar syntax. Because of the widespread use of dfns, several of these dialects no longer support a traditional function definition notation. | ||
== Numeric types == | == Numeric types == | ||