APL deserves its renaissance too
No, it does not.  I used APL professioally for about ten years back in the 80&#x27;s.  I love the language.  It is incredibly powerful.  Once you internalize it&#x27;s like playing the piano, you don&#x27;t think about the mechanics you play music.<p>However, the language did not stand the test of time for far more important issues than the inconvenience of the character set and the keyboard.<p>And, no, J is not a successor to APL, even though Iverson created it.  J is an abomination.  He made a mistake.  He thought that abandoning notation --which is incredibly powerful-- would solve the APL popularity problem.  What he ended-up creating was a royal mess of the first degree.  It&#x27;s garbage.<p>APL could be very useful today but someone with the time and context needs to organize an effort to evolve it into a modern language that retains the power of what got branded as a &quot;tool for thought&quot; while adding layers of functionality that are sorely missing.  I wish I had the time to embark on this journey.  I would love to do something like that, but I can&#x27;t.<p>Again, the character set and keyboard are not the problem.  I used to touch type APL.  Didn&#x27;t take that long to get there.  People learn to drive vi&#x2F;vim.  It&#x27;s a matter of having to have a reason to make the effort.<p>And the ecosystem.  That&#x27;s another huge issue.<p>This has two aspects:<p>Finding qualified programmers and having access to libraries so you don&#x27;t reinvent the wheel.<p>Back in the day I used to do a lot of work with Forth as well.  Great language for the right applications, but finding qualified Forth programmers was difficult when the language was popular and it became nearly impossible with the passage of time.<p>APL suffers from the same problem, a seriously limited talent pool.<p>I probably don&#x27;t need to explain the value and power of having libraries to support a wide range of applications.  Python is a good example of this today.  You can find a library to do just about anything you might care to approach with Python, from desktop through embedded and web.  In many ways the breath and depth of available libraries an be far more important than language capabilities and sophistication.  After all, if you had to write OpenCV from scratch there&#x27;s no amount of APL magic that is going to make you more efficient and effective than a 15 year old kid with Python and OpenCV.<p>I see APL mentioned on HN with some frequency.  I feel that some here are in love with the idea of APL rather than understanding the reality of APL.  Again, I love the language, but there&#x27;s a reason I stopped using it about 25 years ago.<p>What&#x27;s interesting is that C, which I started using way before APL, is still around and very solid language (with lots of libraries) for the right applications.