APL85 — A Brief Impression

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 64

Unfortunately this is a rather briefer overview than I might have hoped to achieve, promoting APL86 taking somewhat more time and attention than I had anticipated. Having heard some rather disheartening rumours about the pre-event registration numbers I was ultimately pleased to find myself in the company of over 450 other delegates.

The Setting¶

Seattle is a greatly underrated city. Aside from registering in my mind as the venue for one cataclysmic event nearly twenty years previously, I knew absolutely nothing beyond roughly where it was and that it was somewhere I definitely didn’t plan to visit. (Bob Gailer’s slide show at APL84 gave me some glimmering that I might have got hold of a slightly poor impression). Nevertheless, APL wins, and the Big Iron Bird does its bit; at this point, an aside to those who might follow — Seattle airport has the most outrageously complicated system of baggage handling. You are not recommended to consume your entire duty-free allowance on the flight unless you have a well-developed faith in the honesty of your fellow man. But we only lost one box of Vectors, which turned up the next day.

After staggering into the official British APL Association accommodations (why wasn’t the Y good enough for everybody else, I ask?) we awaited the dawn — well, actually we awaited the sunset as well. Another of Seattle’s less documented attractions being the Allnight Demolition Company, who set about the task of knocking down an entire block while we were there.

But beyond that the overall impression was of a pretty pleasant place to be. You had to be fairly determined to get run over; we didn’t get mugged; we had some pleasant meals (I recommend F X McRory’s and Enoteca); the setting is splendid (aside from the work of the idiot who built a two-tier freeway right along the waterfront); and above all you knew where you were (Seattle is not a faceless tourist trap).

The Conference¶

A quick scan through the papers had revealed that this was to be a conference which looked rather more outward from the introspection of so much APL; the balance was good. As is always the way there was more of interest than a single person could attend; it seems invidious to pick on individual papers for comment, but nevertheless I’d like to make one or two observations in certain areas (if my conclusions differ from those of the original authors I claim poetic licence).

APL and Graphics¶

Having long been of the opinion that the two were made for each other I found papers by Roos/Laitonern and Ylinen on the practicalities of developing specific business-oriented graphics interesting. With a common theme that simple things are worth doing (because they’ll grow into bigger and better things), the former dealt with the iconic approach to presentation building, the latter with how easy it is to get started on a presentation graphics package. (Would these guys like to borrow some users? I have a few spare.) Also a more fundamentalist message from Richard Nabavi toward the goal of aligning ourselves with the graphics world, paralleled by Neurdenberg and Schwarz in their selection of GKS as an outside system to interface with APL. The pre-conference seminar on the subject of 3D graphics was somewhat tangential in its relationship of the subject matter to the conference proper.

Promoting APL¶

The opening address by Adin Falkoff delved back toward the earliest days of APL conferences and the ‘wish-list’ of the delegates of those times. So much has been answered, one could conclude that APL is now well positioned to move out of its minority placing.

Myrna and DiChellis presented a statistical survey giving some evidence that, for at least one important category of computer user, the picture of APL as declining minority interest is somewhat removed from the truth — BASIC does not rule the world. It would be interesting to see this survey widened.

Peele/Eisenberg gave a thoughtful insight into that most important aspect of promoting APL, which is teaching it to the newcomer (for me a little too high on the questions and the negative rules and a little light on positiveness).

A lunchtime talk by Tama Traberman (enlivened on at least one table by a waiter who could teach Basil Fawlty a trick or two) brought us up to date on her APL83 paper and gave reinforcing evidence that APL has its attractions as a part of schoolroom education.

Another aspect of APL which is coming to be more significant is its use as a development language for packages which are perceived by end users as nothing other than a solution to a problem, the user isn’t sold APL; many of us have, of course, been doing just this for some time but we are now also beginning to see the emergence of marketplace software for which APL has been crucial in development but in which APL is not made evident, Kevin Weaver gave an insight into the advantages of APL in this arena and into the approaches for successful marketing. Combine this with the practical guidance on software publishing given by Philip Evans.

Always at these events Paul Berry’s contribution is a thoughtful one; some may think that his APL85 paper is more tangential to the theme of promoting APL than I do. Paraphrasing frantically I received a message that the original layout of the APL keyboard was misguided in its moving of established symbols but that the adoption of a symbolic system moved APL away from and beyond pseudo-English with its ambiguity and cultural aloofness — we could do well to change the keyboard but making APL a keyword language might not be a totally clever idea.

APL for the APLer¶

Soop/Davis made some eminently sensible suggestions about expanding the scope of shared variables (persistence between sessions and explicit rejection of shares); another paper which caught my particular interest was by Tom Pritchard with a suggestion for an APL macro facility which leads to many seeming simplifications in code as written as part of an application.

My main regret was that I was unable to attend any of the tutorials or much of any of the panel discussions, which is a pity as these are just the things which usually fail to be documented in the proceedings. Agreed, there was a gentleman selling audio tapes of many of the sessions but I don’t find that audio is an appropriate medium for APL (also as a poverty-struck Briton I felt that conference documentation should not be additional to the conference fee).

The Exhibition Staged on a lesser scale than one might have expected and with one or two conspicuous absences. Of course one admires the foresight of Dyadic Systems in having a stand prepared in every continent and the sheer battleship majesty of the Analogic booth. Two products to particularly catch my eye were the Ampere machine which distinctly falls into the category of the machine I’d most like Father Christmas to bring me, and STSC’s Pocket APL which joins QL/APL in being an implementation at an individually-affordable price. (I particularly approve of STSC’s slogan.)

Overall¶

Notwithstanding the pre-event whisperings at the end of the day we should recognise that this was a technically successful and entertaining conference. The significant amount of work put in by Bob Gailer and his committee made it a relaxed event. In particular Kevin Weaver’s obvious energy kept things on the move, and Harvey Krilloff and Joel Ware helped make our presence an active one.

APL and the Future; well, the future’s APL86.