General Correspondence
Vector 1:3, page 5
Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 5
Following the pattern set in Issue 2 of VECTOR we are continuing to split letters into general and technical sections. It would be most helpful if correspondents would indicate which section their letter is intended for. Letters containing APL symbols will normally be considered Technical; please note the requirements on the inclusion of APL code stated on the inside cover. The editor reserves the right to edit letters unless a writer states that a letter is to be published in full or not at all.
WHOOPS¶
Sir: In his article ‘XPL: An Expert Systems Framework in APL’ in vol 1 No. 2 Robert Bittlestone assigns the authorship of ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ to Ray Bradbury. It was, of course, written by Philip K. Dick in 1968 and later formed the basis for the motion picture ‘Blade Runner’. The British publishers were Rapp & Whiting (1969) and Granada (Panther 1972): I do not know who the American publishers were.
Yours sincerely
J. Sullivan,
Business Development Section,
National Westminster Bank plc.,
[address omitted]
London.
DEC Mnemonics¶
Sir: In both issues of VECTOR there has been comment and correspondence about the symbols used to represent APL operators. Probably through ignorance as a result of being neither a computer scientist nor a computer programmer I have wondered what all the fuss is about.
I use an ‘unofficial’ version of APL-11 on a DEC VAX 11/780 via a VT100 terminal. APL-11 uses a mnemonic representation of the APL operators; for example drop is .DA (down arrow), del is .DL, iota is .IO and so on. These mnemonics are quickly learned and I must admit that typing .GU for grade up seems to me to be easier than typing the corresponding APL version which requires a fussy backspace.
It thus seems that the original and mystifying symbolism of APL is largely unnecessary for a successful use of the language, and its replacement with commonsense mnemonics such as those used by DEC (see APL-11 Programmers Reference Manual; Jan 1980: pages 1-5 et seq) might do much to liberalise the language and hasten its more widespread adoption. It would also presumably do away with the need for special keyboards.
Yours sincerely,
J.H.N. Garland,
[address omitted]
Stevenage,
Herts.
Nowhere Fast¶
Sir: VECTOR is a great idea. I hope it gets the subscription support it deserves. The rank and file of APL have been left out in the cold by the APL Mafia (would VECTOR really ‘name the guilty men’?) Not to take anything away from the people who have poured a lot of time, gratis, into APL, but:
- APL/n has mostly the same speakers as APL/n − 1
- Almost all of the action is behind closed doors.
- The info passed down to local SIGAPLs is irrelevantly late or non-existent.
VECTOR proves that there are authors other than the names that occur in proceedings, and that there are newsworthy events in the APL world. My fledgling company has joined the APL Young Turks, the 3rd world of APL. We basically believe that Sharp, STSC, IBM etc have bungled things and are taking APL nowhere fast. There are a lot of small APL firms, but no one except Phil Van Cleave has tried to mount a challenge to the old guard. I don’t think there’s any doubt that IBM, STSC & Sharp manipulate the conferences and publications. Thus I see VECTOR as the first publication to present the other voices of the APL world.
One way of telling for sure is to survey your readers to assess the feelings of the man-in-the-street. From reading V1 I know you know what the questions are and aren’t afraid to ask them. Everyone that I know feels the way I do.
Yours sincerely,
Bob Pullman,
[address omitted]
Rochester, NY.