Comment by mohamedkoubaa

Fortran had arrays since the beginning, but it wasn't really for "array-based programming" except in a trivial sense, since expressions could not produce arrays. APL is the language that invented first-class arrays, and is far more advanced at it than most of its successors, particularly including NumPy.

Modern Fortran has pretty serviceable support for array programming.

Hard disagree that julai perfected arrays. I love Julia but even compared with old with old “array programming lenguaje” like APL not even mentioning newer ones like BQN. Julia array still seem a less expressive than one might hope.

There’s also an under explored area of compile time Shape checking, that might open up a new era in array. There has been interesting advancements in the Rust space like https://github.com/JErnestoMtz/rapl or https://github.com/chelsea0x3b/dfdx

Hard disagree that julai perfected arrays. I love Julia but even compared with old with old “array programming lenguaje” like APL not even mentioning newer ones like BQN. Julia array still seem a less expressive than one might hope.

There’s also an under explored area of compile time Shape Type checking which there has been interesting advancements in the Rust space like https://github.com/JErnestoMtz/rapl

> which arguably numpy advanced and now Julia finally perfected

cough S/R cough.

Like, both Numpy and S/R evolved as an interface over Fortran programs for matrix manipulation but S (even R, maybe) signficantly predates Numpy.