Field results with the APL compiler

The STSC compiler is now in use at customer sites. We can finally answer the question of whether the compiler is effective at reducing CPU time for real applications, and whether it is cost effective to invest the extra effort to speed up applications with the compiler. We have found from numerous case studies that (1) it takes an APL programmer about 3 days to learn about the compiler and begin to use it effectively; (2) customers have speeded up whole applications by factors of 1.2 to 9; (3) usually about one-tenth of an application needs to be compiled to speed it up; (4) the extra effort to analyze an application and compile parts of it can be as low as 1% of the time required to develop it; (5) we have documented cases where the purchase price of the compiler is cost-justified in two months of use.