General Correspondence
Vector 2:3, page 7
Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 7
The VECTOR working group welcomes correspondence on any topic affecting the APL community. All such letters should be addressed to the Editor and should indicate whether they are intended for the general or the technical section. Letters containing APL code will normally appear in the Technical Section of VECTOR, and authors are asked to observe the requirements on the inclusion of APL code stated on the inside cover. The Editor reserves the right to edit any letter unless the write states that it is to published in full or not at all.
Classical APL¶
Sir: In the October copy of VECTOR (which I did not actually receive until early December), you discuss some famous quotations relevant to interpreters. I have never used any of these myself, but I do list some of my more favourite quotations concerning apples. As you will see, I have taken certain liberties with the spelling of the word “apple”, but the quotations are otherwise accurate. It is in this form that I have used them for various presentations, and your readers are more than welcome to do the same if they wish.
“An APL damned mankind” Thomas Otway, The Orphan,Act III, line 594
“He didn’t want the APL for APL’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden” Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson
“The APL press’d with specious cant” Thomas Hood, A Reflection
“A goodly APL, but rotten at the heart” Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
“Stay me with flagons, comfort me with APLs, for I am sick of love”
Holy Bible, The Song of Solomon
Yours sincerely
Paul Barnetson,
Technical Support,
Academic Systems Marketing,
IBM United Kingdom Ltd.,
PO Box 41, Northern Road,
Portsmouth, Hampshire.
Editor: Those of you with timesharing problems may also sympathise with Mark Twain, clearly an APL fanatic, who wrote:
“There’s plenty of boys that will come hankering and gruvvelling around when you’ve got an APL, and beg the core off you; but when they’ve got one and you beg for the core and remind them how you give them a core one time, they make a mouth at you and say thank you “most to death, but there ain’t-a-going to be no core.” Tom Sawyer Abroad
Danish APL Group¶
Sir: Responding to a query from APL Quote Quad, the Danish APL group sent a brief description of the group and its activities to that magazine.
As readers of VECTOR might be interested in that information too, I enclose a copy, which I hope you can use in your publication.
Yours sincerely,
Kim S Andreasen,
Beta-plan Business Planning Systems ApS,
Stengade 75,
DK-3000 Helsingør,
Denmark.
Editor: More details of the Danish APL group will appear in the International APL News section in the next issue of VECTOR.