Fear and loathing with APL (oredev)

Hi, my name is Yan Cui
aka @theburningmonk

What is APL?
created at IBM in 1957, by Ken Iverson
designed to simplify math notations
“A Programming Language”

What is APL?
famed for use of special symbols
array programming
influenced Mathematica, Matlab, etc.

Conway’s Game of Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4

“Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder”
beauty doesn't exist on its own but is created by observers

“…We followed up with two studies on the accuracy
rates of novices using a total of six programming
languages: Ruby, Java, Perl, Python, Randomo, and
Quorum. Randomo was designed by randomly
choosing some keywords from the ASCII table (a
metaphorical placebo). To our surprise, we found that
languages using a more traditional C-style syntax
(both Perl and Java) did not afford accuracy rates
significantly higher than a language with randomly
generated keywords, …”
“An Empirical Investigation into Programming Language Syntax”
- Andreas Stefik and Susanna Siebert

“A language that doesn't
affect the way you think
about programming, is not
worth knowing.”
- Alan Perlis

“in an era of mainstream programming
languages, APL is a rare opportunity to
truly challenge the way you think about
programming”
- me

Let’s learn some APL
http://tryapl.org/

2 + 2
4
4 - 1
3
+ and - works the way you expect

2 * 3
8
4 * 4
256
but * means power

2 / 3
3 3
and / means replicate
it means replicate the scalar value 3, 2 times
and returns an array of 2 elements

2 × 2
4
4 ÷ 2
2
multiplication (×) and division (÷)
just like in Maths!

x ← 42
y ← 1 2 3 4
assignment (←)
variable names are case sensitive

variables are mutable
x ← 42
x ← 1 2 3 4
x
1 2 3 4

assign multiple values at once
(kinda like pattern matching)
x y z ← 1 2 3
x
1
y
2

but the patterns must match
x y ← 1 2 3
LENGTH ERROR
x y ← 1 2 3

1 2 3 - 3 2 1
¯2 0 2
1 2 3 × 3 2 1
3 4 3
arithmetic operations work on arrays too

1 2 3 + 1
2 3 4
2 × 1 2 3
2 4 6
if one side is scalar then the other side
can be any shape

4 ⌊ 2
2
4 ⌈ 2
4
min (⌊) and max (⌈)

1 2 3 4 5 ⌈ 4
4 4 4 4 5
1 2 3 ⌈ 3 2 1
3 2 3
min (⌊) and max (⌈)
same rules apply for arrays

dyadic
2 ⌈ 4
1 2 ⌈ 3 1
monadic
⌈ 2
⌈ 1 3

⌊ 3 4.1 4.5 5.6
3 4 4 5
monadically, ⌊ means floor

⌈ 3 4.1 4.5 5.6
3 5 5 6
and ⌈ means ceiling

3 2 ⍴ 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2
3 4
5 6
dyadically, ⍴ reshapes right hand side
rows
columns

⍴ 1 2 3
3
⍴ (3 2 ⍴ 1 2 3 4 5 6)
3 2
monadically, ⍴ returns shape of argument

3 2 ⍴ 1 2 3
1 2
3 1
2 3
⍴ recycles elements to fill space

2 2 ⍴ 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2
3 4
and ignores additional elements

3 3 ⍴ 1 0 0 0
1 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 1
here’s a neat trick to get diagonals :-P

⍴ 2 2 ⍴ 0 1 0
2 2
⍴ (2 2 ⍴ 0 1 0)
2 2
oh, and APL is read from RIGHT-TO-LEFT

+/ 1 2 3
6
btw, / also means reduce
ie, reduce over the array [1, 2, 3] with the plus function

×/ 1 2 3 4 5
120
btw, / also means reduce
and here’s factorials!

Avg ← { (+/ ⍵) ÷ ⍴⍵ }
anatomy of a defined function
function
name
assignment function
body

Avg ← { (+/ ⍵) ÷ ⍴⍵ }
Avg 1 2 3
omega ⍵ represents the right argument

Diff ← { (+/ ⍺) - (+/ ⍵) }
3 4 5 Diff 1 2 3
alpha ⍺ represents the left argument

Plus ← { ⍺ + ⍵ }
Plus/ 1 2 3
6
defined functions can be used with / too

Xs ← 1 2 3
Xs[2]
2
APL is one-indexed!

Xs[1 2 1]
1 2 1
Xs[2 2 ⍴ 1 2]
1 2
1 2
indices can be array too

Xs[3 2] ← 6 4
Xs
1 4 6
updating an array

⍳9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
index generator

1 < 2
1
1 2 3 < 3 2 1
1 0 0
1 is true, 0 is false
yup, works with arrays too ;-)

~1
0
~1 0 1
0 1 0
monadically, ~ means negate

(1 2 3 < 3 2 1) ∧ (1 1 1)
1 0 0
(1 2 3 < 3 2 1) ∨ (1 1 1)
1 1 1
logical AND ∧ and logical OR ∨

(⍳10) > 7
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
+/ (⍳10) > 7
3
count no. of positives

(⍳10) > 7
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
⍳10 > 7
?
are these two expression equivalent?

(⍳10) > 7
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
⍳10 > 7
1
nope! remember, APL reads from RIGHT-TO-LEFT!

(⍳10) > 7
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
7 < ⍳10
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1

1 0 1 / 3 2 1
3 1
1 0 1 / 'iou'
i u
booleans can be used to as a mask

Values ← 1 3 5 7 9
Values > 4
0 0 1 1 1
(Values > 4) / Values
5 7 9
a LINQ-style Where can be written as

Values > 4
0 0 1 1 1
⍳⍴Values
1 2 3 4 5
(Values > 4) / (⍳⍴Values)
3 4 5
and to get the indices instead

1 2 3 ~ 3 4 3 5
1 2
‘ab’ ‘cd’ ‘ef’ ~ ‘cd’ ‘ef’
ab
dyadically, ~ means without

1 1 3 5 3 7 ∊ 1 2 3
1 1 1 0 1 0
'hello world' ∊ 'aeiou'
0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0
dyadically, ∊ checks for membership

Phrase ← ‘hello world’
(Phrase ∊ 'aeiou') / Phrase
eoo
which vowels appeared in a phrase?

2 2 ⍴ 1 2
1 2
1 2
∊ 2 2 ⍴ 1 2
1 2 1 2
monadically, ∊ flattens a matrix

2 ↑ 1 2 3 4
1 2
2 2 ↑ (3 3 ⍴ ⍳9)
1 2
4 5
↑ to take items from an array
!?

3 3 ⍴ ⍳9
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

2 2 ↑ 3 3 ⍴ ⍳9
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
take a 2 (rows) by 2 (cols) matrix

2 ↓ 1 2 3 4
3 4
2 2 ↓ (3 3 ⍴ ⍳9)
9
↓ to drop items from an array
!?

2 2 ↓ 3 3 ⍴ ⍳9
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
drop first 2 rows and 2 cols

¯2 ↑ 1 2 3 4
3 4
¯2 ↓ 1 2 3 4
1 2
use negative count to take/drop from
end of array

¯2 2 ↑ (3 3 ⍴ ⍳9)
?
¯2 2 ↓ (3 3 ⍴ ⍳9)
?
what about these?
http://tryapl.org/ try it out yourself

3 3 ⍴ ⍳9
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
given a matrix

3 3 ⍴ ⍳9
3 2 1
6 5 4
9 8 7
mirrors the matrix horizontally

3 3 ⍴ ⍳9
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3
mirrors the matrix vertically

⍉ 3 3 ⍴ ⍳9
1 4 7
2 5 8
3 6 9
transposes the matrix⍉

1 2 3 .+ 4 5 6
5 6 7
6 7 8
7 8 9
. creates a cartesian product

1 2 3 .× 4 5 6
4 5 6
8 10 12
12 15 18

(⍳3) .= (⍳3)
1 0 0
0 1 0
0 0 1

(⍳3) .< (⍳3)
0 1 1
0 0 1
0 0 0

(⍳3) .⌈ (⍳3)
1 2 3
2 2 3
3 3 3

(⍳3) .+ (⍳3)
2 3 4
3 4 5
4 5 6

what about this?
http://tryapl.org/ try it out yourself
∊ (⍳3) .× (⍳5)
?

should I learn APL?
absolutely! it’s the shock to the
system your brain needs

is it gonna help my career?
does it matter?

@theburningmonk
theburningmonk.com
github.com/theburningmonk

Fear and loathing with APL (oredev)

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