Dyalog APL is an array-oriented programming language that lets you express complex ideas in remarkably little code.
We build it, support it, and have done for over 40 years.
Built, supported, and improved by the same people who make the language. Free to learn and explore, with commercial licences for commercial work.
Dyalog APL works on whole arrays at once, so tasks that need loops and bookkeeping in most languages collapse into a single expression. And less code isn’t just tidier: it is less to read, less to maintain, and less to get wrong. Compare it for yourself below, across three everyday problems and six mainstream languages.
Already know another language? Start at the first example. Each one adds a single idea.
These examples exist so that someone who already knows your language can read the APL beside it. The best version is therefore the one a working developer in that language would actually write, not the shortest one possible.
If your language has the operation built in, show it. Python should use NumPy, Rust should use windows, Clojure should use partition. Part of what these pages teach is which languages hand you the operation and which make you write it out, so hiding a built-in to make the code longer would defeat the point.
Anything in the standard library counts as built in. Imports and includes are shown above the code, greyed out, wherever a snippet needs them.
Dyalog Ltd will review submissions and decide which version is most appropriate to display.
Dyalog APL looks nothing like the languages you might already know. That is rather the point. Most people find it clicks faster than they expect, and there is a gentle way in.
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