SovAPL 5th Anniversary Conference “APL Methodology and Application” 23-25 April 1991, Leningrad, USSR

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 61

About 70 people attended the conference, 52 from the USSR. Most of the Soviets were for Obninsk nuclear reactor centre (near Moscow), where almost all computer work is done in APL! One woman, Aya Aibarsha, came from Almà Atà, in Kazakhstan. More were expected but, perhaps because of the recent 300% increase in USSR prices, did not arrive. Those who did were greatly appreciated. I enjoyed the young engineers, who were shy at first, but eager to speak English, with questions about Three-Mile Island. One was on his way to Chernobyl.

The conference site, with accommodation, was the Central Institute for Increasing Qualifications of Leningrad Branches (of technology etc.). Each guest room was quite comfortable, with shower-tub, window to courtyard, Soviet made colour TV and a small thermoelectric refrigerator.

In the Soviet papers I saw user-friendly menus of panels and the Cyrillic alphabet used freely. STSC APL*PLUS PC is common among Soviet APL users, but APL2/PC is gaining popularity. The Soviet APL/85 interpreter (APL90 Conf. Proc.) works only on Soviet machines.

The paper I found most interesting was A. Kononov’s, on The View of a Potential (APL) User. He saw four user categories, relating these to operating environments and specific software products. The author was asked to send a copy to ACM which may undertake to offer it in English.

There were minor technical problems at the presentations, such as no lapel microphones, or the translator getting ahead of the speaker (we spoke a paragraph at a time, waiting for this to be translated), or the moderator losing control during the Question and Answer session.

SovAPL ’91 Conference Notes by Alain Delmotte¶

I was been invited to attend the annual conference of the Union of Soviet APL Users which took place on 23rd to 25th April 1991. This was my first visit to an Eastern European country. Apart from being the sixth seminar of SovAPL and the celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Association, this conference was also a kind of rehearsal for the APL92 conference. The first conference took place 62 months ago, but this was not the real start of APL in the USSR. In ’74 already there was a microcomputer with a one line display and two cassette recorders which was working in APL; but that is another story.

With the exception of some minor problems in timing and temperature in one of the conference rooms, the organisation was very good, and I must even say that the foreign visitors were almost spoiled by the kindness of our Soviet hosts. The majority of the participants were from the USSR, from as far as Almà Atà; there were some fifteen foreign guests from the USA, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Belgium. Our Soviet friends regretted the absence of K. Iverson who unfortunately could not come.

The conference was opened by A. Kondrashev, the President of the SovAPL, with the theme: “APL Methodology and Application”. There were presentations by some of the foreign visitors and by Soviet APL users.

Perspectives of International APL Cooperation. E. Juvonen (Finland). Erkki saw this conference as the realisation of old dreams (he said that he wouldn’t even have dreamt of that as too fantastic) and was looking forward to increased cooperation. He was happy to announce APL92 in Leningrad, 6-10 July, with the theme: “APL: The Language in Common” This major event owes a lot to Erkki. Lynne Shaw (USA) gave to A. Kondrashev the Charter making SovAPL the first chapter of SigAPL/ACM in the USSR.

Academician V.P. Ivannicov supported the creation of SovAPL. He is the editor of the magazine of the Academy of Sciences “Programming”. He finds it important to see the creation of other specialised societies which could eventually be united in a Federation of Programmers’ Societies (he is himself interested in LISP).

LMFBR Diagnostics System: on the way from APL to APL2. D. Lukyanov & A. Skomorokhov (USSR). The authors work at Obninsk at the Nuclear Research Institute. APL is extensively used in the domain of monitoring radioactivity for the security of the nuclear reactors. The authors have developed several APL functions libraries accessible from menus. APL is used because the problems require frequent adjustments. The system had to be divided into sub-systems as the computer did not have enough power.

Is APL2 better than APL? J. Brown (USA). This subject is well known and doesn’t need more development.

The Soviet Union is ready for APL2. A. Skomorokhov (USSR). What is interesting here is that it is TRYAPL2 which is professionally used (waiting for the full package!). Alexander also explained his present activity in spreading TRYAPL2 in the nuclear industry, other industries, institutes, schools,.... He organises courses and seminars for schools. A lot of enthusiasm.

Practical experience with APL in the USA. T. Olsen (USA). Thomas presented his personal experience with APL (APL2) and extended the view to the other systems available (including J and Mathematica). He also gave some information on APL Journals and Publications as well as a brief view on the evolution and comparison of notation. Thomas spoke some Russian as did Erkki.

The Use of APL in the Teaching at the Technical University of Denmark. P. Gjerlof (Denmark). Per related his experience of teaching APL and problem solving for the intensive courses at the Technical University. The subjects offered to the students are life problems: wave action on sea structures, satellites, whale song recording and analysis,... The students who use APL go further and faster than those using FORTRAN (even if they have to learn APL, FORTRAN is a prerequisite for the courses). Per enjoys his teaching and finds that “There is no better means to learn and understand something than teaching it.”

R. Kornemark (Sweden) presented APL2/6000 on IBM AIX.

C. Holter (Sweden) presented APE. He had to explain the acronym WYSIWYG, especially to the interpreter. I forgot to say that all presentations were translated into either English or Russian; the interpreter standing next to the speaker.

Can APL*PLUS/PC speak Russian? A. Kondrashev & N. Puntikov (USSR). It is of utmost importance to have the APL systems speaking in both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets: keyboard access, screen displays, printers,... and it should be possible to mix the two. The authors went through different solutions but none fulfilled all the needs. They eventually designed a new character table to have the 66 Cyrillic characters along the Latin and APL ones. It still remains a problem when importing external Russian files, but this is solved by external modules.

APL-KRON Portable Russian speaking system for the IBM PC. V. Dubonikov (USSR). APL-KRON is an extended (APL2) PC-portable APL. It has been developed by the Soviet-British Joint Company “Ural/TEKNESIS”. Apart from the APL2 type of extensions, APL-KRON includes new functions for Relational DataBase management and for windows handling (including graphics). There is a language function which allows you to switch from English to Russian and back. Future plans include compatibility with FoxBase files, crossed tables, mouse support, generalised arrays. APL-KRON is a commercial product ($349) and has a runtime version.

APL as a Profession. N. Gritsenko, E. Korovina, A. Miroshnikov (USSR). The authors presented their views on the requirements of the present day APL programmer. If before, the productivity of the programmer increased by regular small steps from beginner to expert, now there is a plateau and a large step before reaching expertise. This is due to the necessity to include non-APL techniques like X-windows, networking,.... Furthermore the work can no longer be done by one person but requires a teamwork and information exchange. The authors are part of a new company, Infostroy, created in December 1990 in Leningrad by a State Building Company. Their work is primarily but not only oriented to the building industry. They also support the users of legal APL*PLUS/PC.

Non Linear Models Identification with non-Traditional Statistical Methods. V. Kupriyanof, O. Luksha, O. Obraztsov (USSR). A fully integrated system was presented to identify non-linear models. The system is interactive and provides graphical representations of the match of the identification to the observed values. The process is iterative and allows one to choose between different techniques (random search, simplex, Marquardt, bootstrap). It was first written in FORTRAN but then migrated to APL*PLUS, as the first version was bulky and required a preliminary knowledge of the model. The authors plan to move to APL2 as this would allow them to call FORTRAN routines (they have only APL*PLUS/PC v.7).

There were other presentations in parallel sessions.

The cultural activities allowed us to visit some beautiful museums and castles, including the Ermitage; but we could only have a short apercu as these would have required some months or years to appreciate fully. We had a welcome dinner, a get-together, a banquet, a wonderful ballet evening (Nutcracker), a circus evening (myself in Moscow, but the others in Leningrad).

SovAPL has created an Award for outstanding achievement in the development of APL in the USSR. The first award was granted to E. Juvonen for his action in opening the Soviet APL community to the world. A new publication was distributed during the conference. It is in Russian and is called APL Language World. Our Soviet guests, and I would prefer to say our Soviet friends, have fully understood the value of extra-session contacts and work. The participants in the “night seminars” will not forget the hard work undertaken on those occasions.

In general I was only disappointed by the excessive marketing aspect of some presentations (IBM). Also there were no representatives from other companies especially STSC. At present the APL interpreters in the USSR are either very good locally developed interpreters (on mini and now micro-computers) or APL*PLUS/PC. Why nobody from STSC? It is very difficult to understand. If the figures of Personal Computer World (Jan 90, p.104) are correct, I cannot understand that a market of 28 million micro-computers by the year 2000 is not worth moving for.

Altogether I very much enjoyed the conference and the other activities. I would then suggest: TRYAPL92. It will be a full package of APL work, cultural activities and above all hearty friendship.