Talk:Array programming

The overview gives the example of operators functioning as expected when applied to arrays as the characteristic of array programming languages. C++ can do this too, but it's not listed as an array language, so I deduce that there's rather more to the paradigm than the operations on arrays that the article mentions. Might it be worth covering this, maybe by expanding the overview to mention things C++ can't do?

Turing says C++ can do everything another lanuaguage can do. But I do understand your question, as I was about to ask the same on the talk page. What feature does this paradigm offer, aside from syntactic sugar, which can be mimicked with operator overloading? Also, sign talk page posts! Wouter Lievens 13:09, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

C++ can certainly emulate the array paradigm -- but it does not by default. A set of C++ classes to do automatic threading/looping could be called an "array programming extension" to the language. The key element of the array paradigm seems to be the inclusion of vector space and/or ring concepts in the supported data types. zowie 4 July 2005 17:39 (UTC)

Function Rank

I expanded the section on function rank to give some examples; also removed the point that it is a "recently discovered concept" -- function rank (by analogy to operator rank) goes back to the days of APL, and is frequently rediscovered by development teams on different array languages. Also added a few more current examples (I know, there's a comperehensive list in the category listing; but it's nice to have an indicator of the richness of the field). zowie 4 July 2005 17:39 (UTC)