A+ (programming language)

For the A+ computer certification program, see A+ Certification.

A+

Paradigm	array
Designed by	Arthur Whitney
Developer	Morgan Stanley
First appeared	1988
Stable release	4.20-2 / November 2006
Typing discipline	dynamic, strong
Website	www.aplusdev.org
Major implementations
A+
Influenced by
APL
Influenced
K

A+ is an array programming language, a dialect of APL with aggressive extensions. Arthur Whitney developed the "A" portion of A+, while other developers at Morgan Stanley extended it, adding a graphical user interface and other language features. A+ was designed for numerically intensive applications, especially those found in financial applications. A+ runs on many Unix variants, including Linux. A+ is a high-level, interactive, interpreted language.

A+ provides an extended set of functions and operators, a graphical user interface with a wide selection of widgets, automatic synchronization of widgets and variables, asynchronous execution of functions associated with variables and events, dynamic loading of user compiled subroutines, and other features. A newer graphical user interface has not yet been ported to all supported platforms.

The A+ language implements the following changes to the APL language:

• an A+ function may have up to nine formal parameters
• A+ code statements are separated by semicolons, so a single statement may be broken up into two or more physical lines
• The explicit result of a function or operator is the result of the last statement executed
• A+ implements an object called a dependency, which is a global variable (the dependent variable) and an associated definition that is like a function with no arguments. Values can be explicitly set and referenced in exactly the same ways as for a global variable, but they can also be set through the associated definition.

Interactive A+ development is primarily done in the Xemacs editor, through extensions to the editor. Because A+ code uses the original APL symbols, displaying A+ requires a font with those special characters; a font called "kapl" is provided on the web site for that purpose.

Arthur Whitney went on to create the K programming language, a proprietary array language. Like the J programming language, K dispenses with the APL character set. It does not have some of the perceived complexities of A+, such as the existence of statements and two different modes of syntax.

A+ is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

External links

• A+ Development.org A+ is freely available under the GNU General Public License