Post Reply 
What Was Your First Programming Language?
07-04-2015, 03:54 AM
Post: #20
RE: What Was Your First Programming Language?
(07-04-2015 03:08 AM)BobVA Wrote:  I'm pretty sure I saw a chess program written in one line of APL. It was the ultimate quick hack language and still has features I miss (like effortless scalar / vector math).

It's quite amazing what can be done in one line of APL, in college I used to love doing this. I remember playing and trying to modify a Star Trek game in APL that was just a few lines. Chess in one line, why not! Of course this was a write-only language, totally impossible to read, even your own code. the next day.

In the part of the real world where I work, a firm called Security APL (then Checkfree APL, now Fiserv) is the leading high volume portfolio accounting software. As the name implies it was written in APL way back when and it's still is in APL as far as I know. (They only sell it as a service with remote access, so I haven't gotten to look under the covers in a while.) Frankly it's a horribly archaic system but for a long time it was much faster than anything else so it gained market share and became the defacto standard and it still rules for high volume accounting.

Here's a weird discussion about APL's use: http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftwa...ost=160150

-katie

Visit this user's website Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
Post Reply 


Messages In This Thread
RE: What Was Your First Programming Language? - Katie Wasserman - 07-04-2015 03:54 AM



User(s) browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)