The APL phenomenon: An operational research perspective
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: The APL phenomenon: An operational research perspective
zbMATH Open document ID: 0688.90059
DOI: 10.1016/0377-2217(89)90099-4
author: Moshe Sniedovich
published in: European Journal of Operational Research
publication date: 1989-01-01T00:00:00Z
review text: The author shows the power of APL as sophisticated mathematical language for the exposition, description and analysis of operations research algorithms. Descriptions of the arithmetic mean problem and of a job scheduling given both in traditional mathematical notation and pidgin ALGOL serve as examples of the shortcomings of the usual notation. In the next section a short introduction of a subset of the APL language is given to prepare the reader for the APL solutions of the following operational research problems: upper-value, lower-value and saddle points of a two-person zero-sum game, the construction of the set of all non- inferior elements of a finite subset S of \(R^ k\), a dynamic programming solution of the standard knapsack problem, a pivot algorithm for a matrix, and last but not least the simplex method for an LP problem in standard form. It is impressive, that - thanks to the elegance and conciseness of the APL language - the author is able to present executable APL-prototypes for all of the above problems together with the problem description on one and a half pages. Finally, the author concludes that since for APL the division of labour between mathematics and programming is minimal, APL provides an economical and expressive notation for operational research problems. APL is recommended for teaching quantitative OR methods and for prototyping algorithms. Although the article gives a carefully prepared and didactic well-made exposition of the virtues of APL, the demonstration is severely hampered by several typesetting errors in the presented APL-code (e.g. p. 151, second APL solution in the top right column, p. 151, third APL solution in the top right column, p. 151, APL solution of taks 2, p. 152, at least 5 errors in the simplex algorithm, p. 152, last APL expression, p. 153 right column bottom).
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 90C99
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 90-04
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91A05
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 90C05
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 90C39
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 90B35
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 90C10
zbMATH DE Number: 4128675
zbMATH Keywords: APL
zbMATH Keywords: operations research algorithms
zbMATH Keywords: job scheduling
describes a project that uses: APL
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: 0377-2217(89)90099-4
OpenAlex ID: W2093453557
cites work: Computing in statistical science through APL
cites work: Posynomial geometric programming as a special case of semi-infinite linear programming
cites work: Q3759931
cites work: Q3327759
cites work: A method of syntax specification
cites work: Minimizing the average deviation of job completion times about a common due date
cites work: Introduction to College Mathematics with A Programming Language
cites work: Q4156955
cites work: Q3753938
cites work: Q3965547
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4128675