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| We believe that the design of APL was also affected in important respects
by a number of procedures and circumstances.
Firstly, from its inception APL has been developed by using it in a succession of areas.
This emphasis on application clearly favors practicality and simplicity.
The treatment of many different areas fostered generalization … |
| — Falkoff and Iverson,
The Design of APL, 1973
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| The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s
or the poet’s must be beautiful;
the ideas like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way.
Beauty is the first test:
there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.
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| — G.H. Hardy,
A Mathematician’s Apology, 1940
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| Such were the vagaries of what may have been the most powerful computer
language ever hatched by a Canadian.
Yes, I know that James Gosling, an alumnus of the University of Calgary,
was the “father of Java.” He and I have talked about it.
And yes, there is a now a game called “Perl Golf” in which
you try to do the most work in that scripting language with the fewest number of (key-) strokes.
Java and Perl are good and useful and popular, but APL was … beautiful.
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| — Tom Keenan,
Business Edge, 2004
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