The Paper They Dared Not Print

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 87

It has now become a noble tradition to submit to the Programme Chairperson of each annual international APL conference a paper so scurrilous, so extreme and so generally unacademic that it cannot possibly be accepted. For the 1983 APL Conference the accolade of “The Paper They Dared Not Print” was captured (no contest) by an article entitled “The Coming Revolution in APL”, which proposed major changes to APL for it to become more widely used as a general purpose language. Although the paper was rejected, the APL 83 organisers were kind enough to give it space at a plenary session; its bootleg presentation to an audience of over 700 was the occasion of some light relief as a contrast to what Ron Fuss of IBM has christened the “dot dot comma slash slash star” brigade. Avid seekers of the alternative truth about APL can find that article in Issue 6 of “MicroAPL News”, a trade journal from one of our sustaining members.

“A paper so scurrilous and extreme that it cannot be accepted”¶

To keep the Finns on their toes this year, two papers were submitted to the Programme Chairperson that stood some reasonable chance of rejection and true to form, rejected they both were. For those readers who don’t know about the process, APL conferences papers are circulated to three referees, on the basis of whose comments a paper is accepted or not. A good way for a Chairperson to keep a potentially embarrassing paper off the list is to send it to referees who are guaranteed to have apoplexy at anything immoderate. In this respect the choice of referees for these papers represented an outstanding success for Mr. Kallin (always assuming he exists: see earlier International News section).

But unlike the formal APL proceedings, VECTOR is a journal dedicated to printing the truth: “We name the guilty men” and so on. Although in this case we can’t quite do that since the referees are anonymous, we bring you the next best thing; we let you share their indignation. And we print the papers. One of them you’ve already seen if your approach to VECTOR is sequential rather than random access: “Why APL?: A Non-Technical Introduction”. The other is called “FGL: Fifth Generation Language” and it comes next. The fact that both were created by your Editor should only whet your appetite for some savage letters for us to print in the next issue.

“Try to avoid the word ‘bastard’ as a description of non-APL files.”¶

Papers were assessed on five criteria. The “Why APL” paper gets slated by one referee as duplicating existing work: “Would be better published in a popular press microcomputer magazine”. Another referee says: many attendees would be interested in it, there are some new ideas, the length is appropriate, the technical quality is high, and the use of English is “outstanding”. However: “I’d prefer not using the word ‘bastard’ in reference to the difficulty of changing a file structure”. Ah yes, but has he ever tried? The diagram called the “Programming Language Tradeoff” which is explicity documented in the article as based only on empirical observation receives the damning comment “Is this made-up data? Frankly I don’t believe it”, whereas the same referee surprisingly annotates the “Ten New Rules” with the pithy endorsement “This one is OK”. Well, thank goodness for such technical praise.

“BASIC has nothing to do with science: did you mean science fiction?”¶

However, it’s only when we get to “FGL: Fifth Generation Language” that the flak really starts flying. On the matter of audience appeal, we have one referee (A) who thinks the paper would be of interest to everyone, another (B) who says “specialists only”, and a third (C) who can’t decide. On the thorny issue of originality, A says ‘very original’ and B agrees, while C ticks the box saying “duplicates existing work — specify”, but he doesn’t specify, so we shall never know. All the referees agree that the paper is much too long, so some of the tables have been omitted in this reprint to try to make amends. The technical quality comes in as variously high and low. Finally, the vexed question of the use of English scores one ‘oustanding’, one ‘good’ and one ‘needs thorough editing’. As far as comments are concerned, there were many, including “Remove humorous reference to AIDS — in poor taste” and “BASIC has nothing to do with science: maybe you meant science fiction?”

This paper is also published with some reservations from the VECTOR editorial team as a whole. Controversy is expected. The common disclaimer that the opinions expressed in a paper do not necessarily correspond to those of the journal as a whole should be taken seriously. But we are after a little light relief amidst the serious cut and thrust of computer programming, and this next article is for those of you sitting in trains after a long day writing incomprehensible APL code at the office. By way of a footnote: BYTE politely rejected the article as “not of general interest to the readership”, while the paper’s Hofstadterian self-reference to its own acceptance at Helsinki was another of the many straws that broke the camel’s back. So APL will no doubt continue to sail merrily along in its delightful little backwater while the rest of the world computes otherwise.

Your Editor happen to be an APL 84 referee too, but sheer terror at the possibility of printed reprisals always causes him to heap praise and unconditional recommendation on every article that is sent to him.