International APL News

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 23

APL 87 – APL in transition¶

11-15th May 1987
Dallas, Texas

At the time of the APL '81 conference (the high-water mark of conference attendance), the primary operating environment of an APL system was a large, time-shared, mainframe computer. By the time of the APL '85 conference, the personal computer had become a major operating environment for APL. The APL time-sharing industry has shrunk substantially in terms of revenue and employment. More importantly, other languages and operating environments have begun to offer facilities that until recently were the sole province of APL. Features such as array handling and interactive de-bugging facilities are being found in both interpretive and compiled languages.

While this transition has opened up exciting new possibilities for spreading the use of APL, it has also spawned some very real challenges. APL is now competing for the beginner's attention with BASIC (a give-away on most PCs) and with functional C and PASCAL compilers that cost in the neighbourhood of $50. APL is also competing with many spreadsheet and database packages. This conference will attempt to address these issues.

The conference will have three main themes:

APL as an Application Development system – Addressing such issues as user interface, transportability, ease of development, and maintenance and efficiency in operation.

APL and its Environment – Papers on the interaction of APL and its host operating systems, other languages and packages. Also papers on using APL in distributed processing or multiple CPU (or mainframe-PC) applications, and using APL with non-APL file systems.

Future Developments in APL – Including ISO standards, enhancements to the language, Nested Arrays, maintaining APL's technical superiority over alternate languages. Also including papers relating to strategies for increasing the use of APL, particularly among beginning users.

While these topics are only guidelines, the Program Committee encourages and will consider papers dealing with any subject relating to APL. The success of this conference depends on the participation of the entire APL community.

Informal abstracts are due to the Program Chairman by September 15, 1986. Completed papers are due by November 1, 1986, and are to be in English. Final copies of accepted papers are due by April 20, 1987, and must be suitable for photographic reproduction.

Program Chairman: Frank Cavallito, [address omitted], U.S.A.

Rochester SIGAPL group¶

Bob Pullman has contacted us from Rochester regarding his inclusion in the VECTOR list of overseas APL groups. He writes:

"In VECTOR I was listed as President, Rochester ACM-SIGAPL. Although the local chapter is dormant and I am no longer a member of ACM or SIGAPL, I still get phone calls now and again from APLers who call around. I would like to maintain the listing of the Rochester group in VECTOR, but under the different address:

The Rochester Group Inc.,
325 Park Avenue,
Rochester,
New York, 14607"

Swiss APL User Group (SAUG)¶

Despite our pleas for an massive contribution from overseas groups for the APL86 edition of VECTOR, news seems to trickle in slowly. The following contribution from Switzerland just missed our deadline, but we are pleased to publish it in this issue.

"The Swiss APL User Group welcomes this opportunity to address itself to the international community, as it does not share the somewhat xenophobic view of the world prevalent among many mid-of-the-mill Swiss citizens (see latest popular decision regarding participation in the United Nations Organization). The Swiss APL User Group was created in December 1981 under the impetus of APL afficionados at the Central Post Office in Bern, who believed then – we still share this belief today – that APL deserved a wider exposure in Switzerland and was the ideal language for strong-minded individuals. (This is a poor translation of the title of an article written by Dr O Itzinger and published in MONITOR 4/84; the title itself deserves a loud hurrah and reads 'APL – Eine Weltsprache fur Individualisten'.)

"Since then the steering committee and a few dedicated SAUG members have kept the group going over dale and hill. The number of members is relatively small in the absolute sense (60), but large compared to the Swiss population as a whole. In these conditions the steering committee decided that the major effort would be centred on communication between members via a journal to be published regularly 3 or 4 times a year, including any material dealing with APL in all its aspects, first in Switzerland and second in the world at large. Luckily for us, at about the same time, VECTOR surfaced in a format which inspired respect and awe, but turned out to be a very exciting source of information on what was happening on the world APL scene. We would like to acknowledge this debt here and now and are confident that, as time goes on, more and more of the material published in our APL-Notizen will be original and Swiss, whatever that means. (Following Georges Mikes and his 'Switzerland for Beginners', there is no such thing as the Swiss, and we feel it strongly here, as the German-speaking majority is always slightly on edge at having to tolerate a loud French-speaking group, with minority and majority rivalling endlessly in their propensity to use EDP jargon, i.e. bad English as borrowed from our friendly neighbours beyond the Atlantic.)

"All this to let you know that we do exist and that we welcome new members at home and abroad (regardless of mother tongue). Our address is given below and the membership is only 40 (overvalued) Swiss Francs. Anyone who wishes to join will receive our warmest welcome."

Enquiries about SAUG should be addressed to:

Dr J L Metzger,
President, SAUG,
c/o Diametal AG,
Solothurnstrasse 136,
CH-2504 Biel,
Switzerland.

Sydney APL Users Group¶

John Searle has written to tell us about the local APL group in Sydney. Its address is:

Sydney APL Users Group,
GPO Box 1425,
Sydney,
N.S.W., 2001,
Australia.

APLBUG newsletters¶

We continue to receive regular updates of the Bay Users' Group newsletter from California with details of their monthly meetings. There is obviously a very active group there. As well as these reports, there are occasional notes on idioms and other general topics. The latest theme of interest is the burning topic, in California at least, of the dramatic impact of the Earth's decreasing rate of spin. The problem was to work out how long it would take before the diurnal drift would have dribbled away a day, given that the length of a day increases by 1-2 milliseconds per century.

Another interesting development is that the group plans to have an APL booth at the 3-day PC FAIRE in San Francisco, this September. With all the current emphasis on widening awareness of APL (see various APL86 reports in this issue), this seems to be a highly practical way to contribute. The "Bay Area" recruiting ground is around San Francisco, and the group has active members scattered between Santa Rosa and Gilroy. Applicants should contact Curtis A Jones at [address omitted], San Jose, CA. The membership dues are $15 for a full year or $8 if you apply between July and December.