Does APL Need a Type System? by Aaron W Hsu at

APL is known for its concise problem-solving expressiveness, and it is used very successfully in places where high-quality and rapid iteration are requirements, not luxuries. Static Type Systems have had tremendous success throughout the computing industry, even receiving positive HCI usability studies that demonstrate their effectiveness on a number of metrics with mainstream and functionally-oriented programming languages. This success leads many programmers to take the value of type systems as a given, especially as mission-criticality and the age of a project increase. Therefore, it comes as a surprise to many, when learning about APL, that it has spent so long as an untyped, interpreted language in domains and use cases where traditional wisdom would suggest the need for a typed, compiled language.
But APL is not like other languages, and its unique features and historical uses warrant a careful revisiting of the question of type systems. In this talk we will explore whether or not APL needs a type system, whether it would benefit from having one, what that might look like, and how the interaction between APL and type theory might inform the design and use of type systems in general.
Details: confengine.com...
Conference: functionalconf...