A. APL is ahead as a programming language, without exception. It's
design has proved itself beyond ny doubt because it was designed to
work under DOS and has now evolved [seamlessly] to work with the
current height of .NET and in Linux. As programming languages, Visual
APL, APL/W, and APLX have credentials that are way beyond anything
that go by way pf programming languages. I expect APL2 would be in
this same group-only I do not know enough about APL2.
B. I do NOT believe that APL vendors should give away their APL for
free, although, APL/W and APLX come very close to this with their 'non-
commercial use' licensing offer and APL2 is free to educationa
establishments. Generally, the products are exactly the same as the
commercial products.
However,
1. there is no queue of people knocking at the APL door to gain
admission.
2. APL, apparently, is not a tool in the IT toolbox like any other.
For APL, you need to be a domain expert before you contemplate using
it - that means that all the criteria that the IT (cottage) industry
holds dear goes out of the window when it comes to APL.
3. Microsoft have provided free Express versions that can be used for
commercial development - that includes not just the .NET programming
languages but SQL Server too. IBM offer a version of DB2 for free as
do ORACLE of their databases for own use.
So, might there be room to contemplate APL as a product whereby its
use (after the payment of a reasonable fee for the acquisition of the
product) is free (or subject to a minimal charge) but that its
deployment is subject to a licence. At present, you have a 'small'
runtime licensing fee. Why not redistribute the cost - small product
cost, larger deployment cost?
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