[ktpsns]

Just FYI, numpy by no means pioneered this concept. There was Fortran before, as a language built around n-dimensional arrays. And even Fortran was not the first one, as some stack based programming languages (such as APL, IIRC) have similar concepts. Also languages such as R and evventually Matlab (as a kind-of nicer frontend to Fortran libs) pioneered this concept. However, Numpy was the first library bringing this into a general-purpose language as Python is.

[rajandatta]

Fortran, Matlab and all array based languages (APL, J, K, Niall, etc) have these constructs at their core. Ndarray may be a great implementation but the ideas have all been there. I've been exploring J recently and the flexibility and compactness is tremendous.

[dekhn]

Numeric Python, the original numpy, was based mainly on the MATLAB array object. Of course, it was also influenced by FORTRAN and other languages, but ultimately, it was taken from the mental model of MATLAB.

[TheRealKing]

and MATLAB was entirely influenced by Fortran's array-based syntax.

[yakubin]

s/stack/array/

[d0mine]

Fortran was created in the 1950s. APL — 60s.