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Thoughts on APL 1994

from David Eastwood (Nov 1990)

Vector 7:3, page 11

APL community conference reports

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 11

The British APL Association is teetering on the verge of putting in a bid to host APL94. I would like to put forward some suggestions regarding such as event and the way in which we plan for it.

There are a number of areas where I feel that previous APL conferences could be improved upon, speaking as someone who is both an APL vendor, APL programmer and (still) an APL enthusiast.

  1. Committee. The decision has already, and quite rightly, been made that the conference committee should exist independently of the BAA Committee as it will have to be in existence for some years. I am however disturbed by the possibility that the Committee will be made up of the usual ‘hard core’ of APL activists, with the choice of members being, at best, made casually in a BAA Committee meeting. I propose that the BAA membership be canvassed for volunteers. We could even elect the committee!

  2. Conference audience. As a precursor to discussing themes and organisation for the conference, I wonder whether we should address the topic of who we would want to attend. I would hazard a guess that the numbers of attendees at APL conferences is gradually declining and that those who do attend are drawn from a pool of long term APLers who are regular attenders at such events.

If we wish to increase the numbers of attendees and to attract new faces we should bear two points in mind. Firstly the cost of the event and secondly the inducement to bring partners and families. Delegates to an APL conference will either be seeking sponsorship by their employer or will be using a portion of the annual leave to attend. In either case the conference should be seen as offering ‘value for money’ - it should offer an attractive mix of informative and educational material as well as a varied support program. Note that I do not count singing appalling songs about APL as a support program.

  1. Conference theme. It goes without saying that a strong theme for the conference should be selected. (I would suggest the controversial one of ‘APL as A Programming Language’ for those of us who couldn’t care less about yet more language extensions.) What I would ask, however, is that the conference actually remembers that it does have a theme and arranges that papers (see below) and the conference itself stick to the theme. The conference theme is there to attract contributions and also to set the overall tone of the event.

  2. Papers. These are the backbone of any conference, and I would hope that some effort be made to improve matters here. There seems to be little evidence that papers are chosen to match a theme, and in line with the comment above, why do we need so many? I think that the desire to have three parallel sessions is excessive. I would also wish to see two classes of paper strictly forbidden:

- Overt attempts to read from sales literature
- Papers with no effective content

Both these categories have been in evidence at previous APL conferences. In the second category, I place papers whose sole apparent content was simple minded discussions of topics covered in APL reference manuals.

I have a feeling that program committees set out an empty timetable containing a number of parallel sessions and then attempt to fill them with the submitted papers rather than arranging as many sessions as there are papers worth presenting.

  1. Education Day. At APL86 and APL89 (I missed 88 and 90) the inevitable education day was an embarrassing waste of time. No one other than the usual coterie of enthusiasts turned up. Let’s abandon this part of the conference.

  2. Home users. At the same time I would like to speak on behalf of those neglected home users who buy I-APL, APL.68000 or Pocket APL. Some might spend several times the price of their APL (and indeed of their computer!) to attend, but I suggest that many wouldn’t. Could we make some effort to target some event or events to these users?

  3. Vendor forums. A vendor forum seems to be an excuse to extract yet more money from APL vendors. Invariably the conference organisers make large charges but make no effort to attract an audience. The more astute vendors make their presentations as papers anyway. If this sort of nonsense is to be repeated, make it a free event.

  4. Sponsors. Whilst I believe that Rowntrees have shown interest in sponsoring part of APL94, which is extremely good news, I would sincerely hope that some effort is to be made to canvass other commercial sponsors. I actually believe that a good level of commercial sponsorship will offset the bad impression that is always given by the APL ‘nutters’ who tend to dominate these events.