[spit2wind]

I wish the licensing of APLs were more free. Yes, GNU APL exists and related languages like J are free. However, if you want the APL symbol set your choices are few: GNU APL, Dyalog, or one-man hobby projects. As far as I can tell, GNU APL is more of a historical time capsule than a practical development language.

The array language community seems friendly and exceedingly competent. It also appears to have a strong "get it done" attitude which prioritizes engineering over freedom. The community is tightly entwined with proprietary software.

I can't bring myself to invest the time to meaningfully learn APL because it's hard to see it as a real investment—the community doesn't own its contributions. It looks like trading dollars for arcade tokens.

[lokedhs]

While I am the author of one of those one-man projects, I would like to point your attention towards BQN. It started as a one-man project, but isn't anymore.

As much as I would like people to look at my implementation, if you want to play around with something more complete, and also uses symbols in the same way APL does, then BQN is the one to look at.

[takeAfence]

I second the recommendation for BQN.

You know, there's a reason why there's so many "one-man hobby project" implementations of, say, APL. It's actually not that hard! If you're willing to spend a week (yes, a week), you can have your own barebones implementation of APL. And from there, it's really sort of your playground, which is neat. Thought of a cool idea? Implement it! Obviously, most people won't want to do this, investing time (even if it's not that much) in something they don't really even have any experience invested in. But it's an easier option than you might expect.