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Array notation design considerations: Difference between revisions
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Array notation design considerations (view source)
Revision as of 08:56, 19 August 2022
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== History == | == History == | ||
=== 1996 === | |||
[[John Scholes]] sent an early draft of ''Dynamic Functions in Dyalog APL'' <ref>[[John Scholes|Scholes, John M.]] https://www.dyalog.com/uploads/documents/Papers/dfns.pdf Dynamic Functions in Dyalog APL]</ref> to [[Phil Last]]. Among the plethora of new ideas that this sparked, one had consequences entirely out of scope. The ability to write a multi-line function embedded in another with line-ends between paired braces hinted at the possibility to do a similar thing between brackets and parentheses to solve a problem for which Last had been seeking a solution for a decade. | |||
=== 2010 === | |||
At the 2010 APL Conference in Berlin Dyalog introduced experimental interpreter [[APL#]]. This included a notation for namespaces as name-value pairs between paired double brackets with major and minor separators being line-end and assignment arrow: <source inline>[[name←value ⋄ ...]]</source>; and a sort of extended, multiple expression separated by line-ends and between paired parentheses. | |||
=== 2013 === | |||
Having attempted to engage Dyalog in the idea of an array notation over several years Phil Last sent a proposal to John Scholes outlining two possible executable notations for creating multi-dimensional arrays without function application. One using potential new system construct :Array and :Cell to be used in tradfns and another using line-ends between balanced brackets to define arrays of rank-2 or greater in both dfns and tradfns. | |||
Scholes replied with | |||
:''... I agree that APL could really do with a primitive mechanism for specifying higher rank literal values'' | |||
It became RFE 9458: Proposal for a mechanism to specify large and higher rank literal values directly in code. | |||
After which in the following year ... | |||
=== 2014 === | === 2014 === | ||