Matlab and APL: Meeting Cleve Moler (2012)
Cleve Moler, the inventor of MATLAB, discussed the origins and characteristics of the programming language at the IEEE Computer Society Awards Dinner. He described MATLAB as a 'portable APL' due to its use of a traditional character set, although he noted that it is a mix of various elements. Moler emphasized that the success of MATLAB lies in its accessibility for users across different domains.
- ▪Cleve Moler developed MATLAB as a matrix calculator for his students.
- ▪He sees MATLAB as a 'portable APL' because of its character set.
- ▪Moler believes that a 'mishmosh' of elements makes programming languages easier to understand.
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| Original publisher | Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take |
| Canonical URL | https://computinged.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/matlab-and-apl-meeting-cleve-moler/ |
| Publication time | Sat, 16 May 2026 12:29:09 +0000 |
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MATLAB and APL: Meeting Cleve Moler June 14, 2012 at 10:11 am 4 comments I have often described MATLAB as “APL with a normal character set,” but I didn’t actually know anything about how MATLAB came to be or if there was any relationship. Last night, I got to ask the man who invented MATLAB, Cleve Moler, at the IEEE Computer Society Awards Dinner, where Cleve was named a “Computer Society Pioneer.” When I introduced myself as coming from Georgia Tech, he took notice. “Georgia Tech is a big MATLAB user!” We teach 1200 Engineering students a semester in MATLAB. Cleve developed MATLAB (in Fortran) as a Matrix Calculator (explicitly, a “MATrix LABoratory”) for his students. There was no explicit tie to APL, but he saw the connections.
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