International APL news

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 15

AFCET¶

We have received a couple of brochures from the APL working group of AFCET – Association Francaise pour la Cybernetique Economique et Technique – who are organising various working groups and seminars on APL. Following a successful seminar at Cap d’Agde in May 1985, they are planning a similar event in June this year. If my French translation serves me well, the format is planned to include a 2-day APL course directed toward the APL2 families (IBM, STSC, Dyadic, …), hardware and software demonstrations, and the conference proper. Full details can be obtained from:

AFCET, 156 Boulevard Pereire, 75017 Paris.

We also received the programme for a 2-day seminar they organised last December. Following an initial introductory session, the flavour moved strongly towards the areas of graphics and artificial intelligence with papers on such topics as:

APLIAS – a language for manipulating images constructed in APL
SEXPOL – prototyping expert systems in APL
APL for development of Artificial Intelligence utilities
The power of expression of LISP and APL
APL, Graphics and Artificial Intelligence
APL/Prolog comparison for writing a medical expert system

The material sounds very interesting and we would welcome the opportunity to print a review of the conference by anybody who attended it.

AFCET also advertised the availability of proceedings and video-tapes of some of their previous events on topics such as APL & Databases, Graphic techniques & APL, APL & microcomputers, APL and Infocentres, and Programmer productivity in APL.

Danish APL Group¶

We have also received the following details from the Danish APL Group.

Name:¶

The APL Group
Danish Data Processing Association
14, Kronprinsensgade
DK-1114 Copenhagen K
Denmark

Phone: +45 - 1 - 11 15 60

Contact:¶

Kim S. Andreasen
Beta-plan ApS
Stengade 75
DK-3000 Helsingør (Elsinore)
Denmark

Phone: +45 - 2 - 21 48 48

Mailbox:¶

IPSA mailbox address: LARS

General:¶

The group was established in 1978 as a rather informal special interest group within the Danish Data Processing Association. Over the years, this group has arranged a number of highly successful events, including APL conferences with up to 200 delegates from throughout Scandinavia, well-attended afternoon seminars (called ‘On-your-way-home’-meetings), an APL workshop, and APL exhibitions.

The events are most often held in Copenhagen and its surroundings, but we consider meetings in the provinces as well.

Our group benefits from having available the entire mailing list from the Danish Data Processing Association (with approx. 1600 members), as well as having access to the Inter-Scandinavian bi-monthly magazine Data-nytt (Data-news) published by the cooperating Scandinavian Data Processing Associations.

Plans:¶

Right now, the APL Group is planning at least 3 ‘On-your-way-home’-meetings for the season 85/86. As it has been the case earlier, we will try to make these meetings attractive to APL’ers as well as non-APL’ers, by presenting applications for which APL has shown to be a useful implementation language. In the announcements we will emphasize the applications, and not the APL language on its own.

The major event arranged by the APL group this season will be an exhibition, covering both APL-related hardware, software and services, and communications. The exhibition will be in Copenhagen, in late spring 1986.

At the same time, the APL group works on a book project, which we hope will result in a series of 5 valuable APL-handbooks (in Danish language). These 5 volumes will cover a rather broad spectrum of problems that APL programmers meet in their daily work. They will include an APL tutorial (2 volumes), an APL language reference, an APL Systems Design Handbook, and a book with useful programming tips and techniques. As we have been able to attract a number of very competent authors, we hope that these books will be used by APL programmers and teachers throughout Scandinavia.