I-APL News: The State of the Project

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 31

We must not be tempted, now that we have issued good BBC, RML Nimbus, PC and Archimedes ports, to rest on our laurels.

Implementations¶

For these machines and the PC we now have complete implementations which offer access to all the facilities of the machine, to native files, graphics, colour and sound. The PC version of I-APL now takes note of DOS environment settings such as ‘SET IAPL=/H’ for the Hercules adaptor. This saves remembering the correct startup options for your particular machine.

Workspaces¶

We also have a growing collection of useful workspaces. We are very conscious that these are of varying difficulty and that there is no adequate printed guidance to help a teacher to use them effectively. Since I-APL has not validated them, edited them or even checked the robustness of the code, they are offered through the British APL Association software library. Such software has no guarantees of suitability or quality, and without such guarantees is much less attractive to teachers.

Would You Like to be Software Editor?¶

The BBC and Archimedes machines cannot easily use workspaces which are issued on PC compatible disks. Either the software library must begin to handle non-PC disks or we need simple instructions how to transfer workspaces from a PC to a BBC or Archimedes (including how to wire a suitable cable!). Would anyone be willing to do this? Would anyone like to take on the job of editing, indexing and explaining the workspaces to a consistent standard? A page of clear explanation per workspace could make all the difference whether a teacher felt it worth the trouble of trying it out or not.

Books¶

There are now also the essential books. The second edition of the I-APL Instruction Manual is being issued. It covers the RML Nimbus, BBC ‘B’ and Master and Archimedes as well as PC clones. The first edition of ‘An APL Tutorial’ is exhausted and the second edition is being supplied: there are a few improvements but the second edition is substantially unchanged. There is still a small stock of ‘An Encyclopedia of APL’ and the second edition is camera-ready and will go to press soon, so that orders will not be delayed for lack of it. First editions are now accompanied by a list of errata (only one side of A4) which may help to avoid difficulties. We now also have ‘APL in Social Studies’ by Tama Traberman - a new booklet based on Tama’s experience teaching with APL in New Jersey.

The Road Winds Uphill All the Way¶

We have always said, and believed, that the hardest part of the I-APL project would be getting people to use APL in education and that overcoming the first hurdle of making it possible for teachers to afford an interpreter does not count as success. In fact we have not even overcome the first hurdle except in the UK and Denmark. I-APL is not yet available on the common home and school computers in the USA or Germany or France (but porters are working hard at the job and we hope and expect to be able to complete more versions this year).

What Help Do Teachers Need?¶

Without underestimating the work that still has to be done to get I-APL available on the main remaining school microcomputers, I feel we should now address the problem of persuading more teachers to get to know and use it. The main difficulty most of us have with this is that we don’t really know what it is that would be most effective in helping and encouraging teachers to use it. We have to ask the teachers and provide what they ask for. And we probably have to get other teachers to help.

Let us Publish Teaching Material¶

Perhaps the best help and encouragement that can be provided is teaching material that has been used successfully, clearly explained and fully documented. It also needs to be cheap. For example Tama Traberman’s ‘APL in Social Studies’ is clearly the product of practical teaching experience. The material is graded so that it does not demand too much of pupil or teacher at any stage, and the text is clear and well presented. It is also short. A teacher can read through it without having to give up a weekend.

We want more of this kind of material. We want more reports of use in the classroom like Bruce Dickson’s. We want to establish, in every teacher’s mind, that APL has a low threshold and a high ceiling - that it can be used at an elementary level and is easy to introduce and that there is practically no limit to the heights you can reach with it. So reports of use in higher education too will be valuable. Knowing that what is taught at an elementary level in school is likely to be built on and valuable to a student in an advanced course will certainly not discourage schools from introducing APL to their pupils.

Can YOU Help to Get Teaching Material into a Publishable Form¶

So, please, if you are a teacher and experiment with APL, write up your work and allow me to publish it. The British APL Association is keen to publish anything about the use of APL in schools or colleges in the Education Vector. I am keen to publish anything with sufficiently wide appeal to sell a thousand copies. This is not restricted to I-APL. Any variety of APL is acceptable, though, of course the less use is made of extensions beyond the ISO standard, the wider the potential appeal. If you are an APLer who knows a teacher, please help and encourage them to introduce APL to their pupils and offer to write up the experience (or the course) for publication in an article or a booklet.

I pay royalties, organise typesetting and printing and sell copies to authors at cost. Publishing your course this way may even be the cheapest way of getting the course notes copied in sufficient volume to supply a dozen classes.

For examples please see the I-APL Manual, the Tutorial in APL and APL in Social Studies. Anything from 24 to 96 pages can be produced economically in the same style.