Jul 25, 2026 · Fundamentals

From Harvard Rejection to Turing Award: The Story of APL, the Language That Tormented Programmers

Kenneth Iverson, dismissed from Harvard after five years as a teaching assistant, created the APL language—initially a teaching notation—that earned him the Turing Award, sparked polarized opinions for its cryptic symbols, powered IBM’s System/360, inspired the J language, and remains influential in data‑centric computing today.

APLArray ProgrammingIBM System/360

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From Harvard Rejection to Turing Award: The Story of APL, the Language That Tormented Programmers

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May 30, 2026 · Fundamentals

Which of the 10 Nearly‑Dead Programming Languages Still Shape Modern Tech?

The article surveys ten historically influential programming languages—COBOL, ALGOL, APL, BASIC, PL/I, SIMULA, Pascal, CLU, ML, and Smalltalk—explaining their original purposes, key technical contributions, reasons they fell out of mainstream use, and how their ideas continue to underpin today’s software ecosystems.

ALGOLAPLCOBOL

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Which of the 10 Nearly‑Dead Programming Languages Still Shape Modern Tech?