A development system for testing array theory concepts
Michael A. Jenkins · ACM SIGAPL APL Quote Quad · 1981
An experimental programming system has been written in APL to allow exploration of array theory and its use in a programming environment. The system combines array theory notation with programming language constructs in a simple but powerful language that has both applicative and imperative aspects. The system builds on the work of Hassitt and Lyon, using a shared variable interface to access their low level implementation of array operations. The system allows a small number of primitive operations to be chosen from which one builds other definitions. It has been used to study two different models of the theory, one based on set-theoretic intuition following More's series of papers, and a second that uses recursion to build definitions much in the style of Lisp. This paper describes the overall design, how it has been used and some of the internal algorithms.