Editorial: Time to Adopt the Missionary Position?

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 3

Response to the publication of VECTOR Volume 1 Number 1 in July 1984 has been most encouraging. Production technicalities apart, we’ve received nothing but praise for the new format of this journal. Our thanks to all those who have kindly written us letters; but we shall, however, start to become suspicious if the knocking copy doesn’t arrive soon. No doubt this current issue will give plenty of opportunity for proffering the practised poison pen.

Enthusiasts of the APL computer language have long since resigned themselves to the fact of their minority role in the league of computer language usage. “Look at us”, we exclaim when surrounded by a throng of like-minded converts at Heidelberg, Washington or Helsinki. “APL is the only language which hosts an international annual forum”. “Ah yes”, reply the cynics, “but that’s because it’s the only language whose international user base can fit into a single dining hall.”

In fact this isn’t true. The annual conventions tend to exhibit the same group of faces, mutatis mutandis, representing the inner sanctum, the mystics who are reverentially charged with the preservation and development of the language. There continues to be a much larger group of less fanatical but equally persuaded users who work in industry, banking, insurance, government and almost every other profession. These people are simply too busy to attend an APL conference — for all the right reasons.

But there is another set of people out there who code systems in APL who simply do not know that APL conventions, associations, publications — even this one — exist at all. David Preedy told me about an occassion on the Bristol-London train journey when he had been discussing matters of APLesque gravity with a colleague. They were finally interrupted at the approach to Paddington by the occupant of the adjacent seat, who had been unable to contain his amazement at hearing that a whole organisation — indeed several — existed to promote the language that he thought only he had discovered.

So please adopt the position of a missionary in the cause of APL. Think of some APL users you know who haven’t heard of the British APL Association — or even some open-minded savages who are still sacrificing their dead in the names of their local deities BAY SICK, FOUR TRASH, KO BAWL or P’SKULL. Take up this copy of VECTOR, walk up to them and stand on your soapbox (it may be your only tradeable commodity). There are at least 10,000 APL users in the United Kingdom alone and the current membership of the B.A.A. is less than 10% of that figure. Why not do it now? They have nothing to lose but their intellectual virginity — and as for you: well, you always wanted to be a Viking didn’t you? After all, isn’t that why APL is so popular in Scandinavia?