Ian Clark replies...

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 8

Ian Clark replies …¶

Reading Professor Alfonseca’s dignified letter, I think he has a legitimate grievance about what I wrote in my impressions of the APL2002 conference (VECTOR, Vol 19 No 2 pp 63-64). Consequently I’m not inclined to attempt a rebuttal, so it falls to me to apologise for the offence I have given over my remarks, particularly those concerning ‘the Franco closet’, a ‘minor league country’ and ‘if they just ignore the English-speaking world it will eventually go away’. On sober reflection I can see no valid interpretation being put on them beyond their being gratuitously offensive. I wish to withdraw them. Professor Alfonseca says “You could have said similar things in a very different way”. To my shame I must agree with him. Which leaves one to ask: why did I write what I did? I don’t think I’m alone in detecting a mismatch with expectations over the quality of papers, at what was after all the annual APL world conference. I’m not alone in worrying over this, and the reasons for it, and trying to think what its implications are for the future. Was this the fault of Professor Alfonseca and his assistants? Emphatically no! Other correspondents in the same issue were full in their praise of the excellent organisation – the few minor criticisms were totally constructive, I thought. These opinions are ones I happen to share – I should have made this clearer. The quality of submissions from the Escuela Tecnica Superior de Informatica itself were nothing to be ashamed of – any suggestion in my article to the contrary was entirely unintended.

So why weren’t they supported by papers of comparable quality by the APL community at large? Is APL dead as a world movement? Is the international APL community dead? That means “us” – are we (brain-) dead? I tried to conjecture reasons in my last paragraph, and the reasons I offered were quite wrong. But the questions remain. Maybe I don’t deserve to be allowed a second attempt at a diagnosis, but Professor Alfonseca does at least deserve this of me: to declare emphatically that it was not his fault, nor that of his department or the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, nor of Spain in general.

It was “our” fault, the fault of the international APL community. For not supporting the annual conference with the number and quality of contributions it merited. After all, any selection committee can only work with the material submitted to it.