Development Environments

On all platforms, Dyalog includes an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to enable the interactive use of the APL notation to explore data, discover algorithms and create solutions. Using the IDE, the user can create an application through experimentation and easily diagnose problems, resolve issues and resume work. The IDE provides editors for functions and classes, and a tracer which allows the setting of break points, watch points, and full edit-and-resume capabilities.

The advanced user can enhance the IDE through User Commands. As part of the standard offering, Dyalog provides user commands that can, for example, interface to external source code management systems and search, replace and refactor code in the active workspace or in external code; you can further extend the IDE by implementing your own user commands.

Remote IDE (RIDE)

The RIDE is a cross-platform, graphical development environment capable of producing a rich user experience on a variety of platforms. It can be run on macOS, Linux and Microsoft Windows, and can be used from any one of these platforms as a front end for Dyalog versions from 14.1 onwards. The RIDE and connected Dyalog engines do not need to be running on the same device, the same type of device or even on the same continent. From Dyalog version 17.0, the RIDE does not even need to be installed on client machines; if it is installed on the machine where the interpreter is running, then the interpreter can be configured to act as a web server and provide remote debugging or interaction through any compatible web browser.

GitHub logo

The RIDE and its protocol are an open-source project on GitHub to encourage the development of third-party development tools for Dyalog APL.

Microsoft Windows IDE

The RIDE is now the recommended IDE for macOS, AIX and Linux users. However, our native Microsoft Windows development environment remains the richest environment for the development of APL applications. Over the years, the Windows IDE has taken advantage of the Windows GUI to provide a Workspace Explorer, integrated search and replace tools, a language bar, tools for debugging GUI applications, an editor for nested arrays and integrated charting of data. Until the RIDE catches up, the classical Windows IDE is expected to remain the tool of choice for pure Windows development.

Character Based (TTY) IDE

The original interface to Dyalog is a UNIX (or VT-100) style terminal session. Despite only having a fixed-size screen full of characters, this interface does provide all of the interactive functionality mentioned in the introduction. We will continue to provide this interface for use in situations where no GUI is available or where developers prefer the retro look!