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Report on the Promotion of I-APL at ICME-6 Budapest 27th July - 3rd August 1988

by Neil Bibby and John Durran

Vector 5:3, page 20

conference reports education

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 20

The Sixth International Congress on Mathematical Education attracted some 2500 delegates. The committee of the British APL Association was right to have judged this an ideal opportunity to promote APL in general, and I-APL in particular, in the world of mathematics education, and we believe that the following report justifies our claim to some success in having done so.

During our time in Budapest we were able to give both practical demonstrations of APL and lectures on its structure and syntax. For the practical demonstrations, we had first to track down a suitable machine, and were initially rather frustrated in our efforts. However, the problem was solved by one of the Technical University’s extremely helpful computer staff, whom one of us (NB) came across admittedly more by serendipity than by intention. In so doing, we met some Hungarian students of about sixth-form age who, despite their minimal English picked up a few APL idioms in a very short time. This was one more confirmation of the power of APL symbolism.

We thus not only secured the use of a PC-clone but also the assistance in our demonstrations ofsome new APL enthusiasts! These demonstrations were carried out on the first-floor gallery of the main building of the University, where many casual passers-by would stop, chat and try for themselves. Our demonstration was flagged by a poster which included Cocking and Drury’s APL/BASIC comparison for the sum 1 + 2 + .... + 10 (by kind permission of Romilly Cocking) - extremely unfair to BASIC, of course, but then it’s difficult not to be! The poster also advertised I-APL, and even when the order forms we had available had run out, many people were interestedly noting down the address.

Two of our most memorable demos were to two ‘high-priests’ of the British LOGO establishment, Trevor Fletcher and Celia Hoyles, of whom Trevor seemed the more enthusiastic. To complement these demonstrations, John Durran gave lectures on the structure of the language to some rather small, but nevertheless intensely interested audiences.

We were asked to include in this report some advice on how APL can best be promoted in the world of education. The following comments are those of one of us (NB).

  1. The first issue I wish to emphasise is the problem of the elitist attitude of many APLers. If the language is to secure any degree of popularity in education, APLers will have to suppress their ‘powerful one-liners’ view of the world, adopt a much more sympathetic attitude to novices, and avoid dismissal of their initial forays into the language as trivial, for instance.
  2. There is also an image problem: APL is often seen as a crank’s language. It’s often too easy for people to write-off APL because of the very style of its adherents. There is a fine line between perceived enthusiasm and perceived eccentricity.
  3. As far as schools’ use of APL is concerned I would recommend that I-APL users’ groups be set up within the ASE, MA and ATM. As an initial step towards this, there ought regularly to be APL sessions, on the lines of those we held in Budapest, at the annual conferences of each of these three associations. (At the moment most teachers have never even heard of the language.) These sessions should be complemented by regular items in the various journals of these bodies.
  4. There are various ways the I-APL product can be improved. The most urgent of these would be the supply of keyboard stickers for the character set, whether or not the keyboard layout is aligned with the standard. The second is that the literature accompanying the BBC version should be much more friendly than that which comes with the Clone version - apart from the generally very good but curiously laid-out Helzer book, the latter is not calculated to win adherents, and care should be taken not to frighten off newcomers by appearing elitist.

We hope that we have adequately fulfilled our brief; our impression from Budapest was that there is a lot of potential interest in the language which, suitably nurtured, should ensure a much more secure place for APL in the world of mathematics education than it has hitherto had. It was a pleasure to have been able to act on behalf of the BAA in this way, and we are both grateful for the financial support given to us to facilitate our trip.

Neil Bibby & John Durran
October 1988