JUjustinclift·Mar 5, 2023
An easier to click link: https://github.com/gregfjohnson/aplette
In Boehm-Demers-Weiser Garbage Collectorgregfjohnson
aplette
C2018–2023
gregfjohnson / aplette
aplette
This is a new take on an old language: APL. The goal is to pare APL down to its elegant essence. This version of APL is oriented toward scripting within a Unix-style computing environment.
5Distinct people
9Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
88GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
This is a new take on an old language: APL. The goal is to pare APL down to its elegant essence. This version of APL is oriented toward scripting within a Unix-style computing environment.
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Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
If you're interested in recent developments in array languages, I recommend checking out: BQN https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/ ngn/k…
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
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Mentions over time
HN mentions by year9 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-05-29 04:06:24 UTC to 2023-03-05 07:51:37 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 4 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
9 sourcesThere is Aplette which supposedly integrates nicely with other Unix tools. It's a port/update of the earlier openAPL source code, which I think was done by Ken Thompson? Here:
https://github.com/gregfjohnson/aplette
In Try APLIf you're interested in recent developments in array languages, I recommend checking out:
BQN https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/
ngn/k https://git.sr.ht/~ngn/k/tree/master/item/readme.txt (Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22009241)
aplette, which is a modernization of Ken Thompson's APL (with a LOT of projects in between them; Ken's APL interpreter -> ? -> OpenAPL -> aplette) https://github.com/gregfjohnson/aplette (Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740536)
I'd also recommend checking out J, which isn't a recent development, but has the best syntax out of all array languages, has the best development environments, is the easiest to learn (it has a way to learn it built into the language itself!), and is the only one that treats making GUIs as a first-class feature (and, also, critically, is
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not proprietary, unlike Dyalog):
https://jsoftware.com (Has so many previous discussions I just recommend using HN search to find them.)
The chat is biased in favor of Dyalog APL, but a lot of the modern additions Dyalog has made to the language make it (in my opinion) worse as a notation, so ideally don't let it turn you off of the concept of array languages entirely if Dyalog doesn't "click" with you.
If you haven't already, you should also check out Notation as a Tool of Thought, a paper so good it won Iverson the Turing Award:
https://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~jzhu/csc326/readings/iverson.p...
The .inp files in the qa directory seem to be the only samples. The user guide looks mostly reference.
Note to anyone posting a new language experiment: samples are critical!
https://github.com/gregfjohnson/aplette/blob/master/qa/print...
In Aplette: a minimalist APL oriented toward scripting within a UNIX environmentAplette: a minimalist APL oriented toward scripting within a UNIX environment
69 points · Open discussionAplette: a minimalist APL oriented toward scripting within a UNIX environment
4 points · Open discussionAplette: a minimalist APL oriented toward scripting within a UNIX environment
1 points · Open discussionAplette: A minimalist APL oriented toward scripting within a UNIX environment
3 points · Open discussionI have used and loved apl\11 and its successors for many years.
It could not be compiled on 64-bit machines, because of some ancient programming practices that were used throughout the code.
I took some time to update apl\11 so that it compiles and runs on modern machines.
Did a few other things as well, such as replacing linear algorithms in the symbol table code with O(logN) algorithms.
I would refer to this project as "heirloom software". It is touchingly old-fashioned in some ways, a bit dusty, and still fully serviceable.
It is a bit like owning and flying an Ercoupe. A bit quirky, an ongoing effort of love, but a joy to fly.
Edit your apl with vim, run apl files like scripts from the shell, pipe inputs and outputs, copy an APL binary or build it anywhere with a C compiler, run it immediately and conveniently.
My take on the 'funny
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characters problem' was to go with touch typing, and stick with ASCII. If you can write APL with your eyes closed, you can use APL-touchtype. "rho" is "R", "iota" is "I", etc. Trig is "O". Log is "O@*". (APL-touchtype uses "@" instead of backspace, and with that trivial substitution, all of the APL overstrikes become APL-touchtype ascii.)
It is ABSOLUTELY a work-in-progress, but anyone who wants to is welcome to give it a try:
https://github.com/gregfjohnson/aplette