Associative Programming Language

The Associative Programming Language (APL) is a database language developed by General Motors Research Laboratories in 1966.^[1]

APL was developed to provide high-level language data access and manipulation functions to support GM's CADANCE interactive computer graphics system. It was designed to integrate with PL/I.^[2]^[3]

The underlying database is assumed to follow the network model. GM's first database manager was implemented via linked lists, but in 1977 the "Virtual Associative Access Manager" {VAAM) was developed to use virtual storage and implementing entity relationships as arrays.^[1]^: p.86 APL was later ported to the MCTS operating system.

^ ^a ^b Price, Carol (1978), "APL/VAAM" (PDF), NASA Conference Publication 2055: Engineering and Scientific Data Management, NASA, pp. 85–97
^ Bachman, Charles (January 2006). "An interview with Charles W. Bachman". ACM Oral History interviews. doi:10.1145/1141880.1141882. ISBN 978-1-4503-1771-9. Retrieved June 29, 2024."George [Dodd] built a very attractive IDS like system, called 'Associative Programming Language' (APL)"
^ Dodd, George G. (November 1966). "APL: A language for associative data handling in PL/I". AFIPS '66 (Fall): Proceedings of the November 7-10, 1966, fall joint computer conference. pp. 677–684. doi:10.1145/1464291.146436 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISBN 978-1-4503-7893-2. Retrieved July 2, 2024.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)

[Price-1] Price, Carol (1978), "APL/VAAM" (PDF), NASA Conference Publication 2055: Engineering and Scientific Data Management, NASA, pp. 85–97

[2] Bachman, Charles (January 2006). "An interview with Charles W. Bachman". ACM Oral History interviews. doi:10.1145/1141880.1141882. ISBN 978-1-4503-1771-9. Retrieved June 29, 2024."George [Dodd] built a very attractive IDS like system, called 'Associative Programming Language' (APL)"

[3] Dodd, George G. (November 1966). "APL: A language for associative data handling in PL/I". AFIPS '66 (Fall): Proceedings of the November 7-10, 1966, fall joint computer conference. pp. 677–684. doi:10.1145/1464291.146436 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISBN 978-1-4503-7893-2. Retrieved July 2, 2024.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link)

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