Out now on Vector

Six new articles posted:

The view from Berlin Roving reporter Mike Hughes sends us a postcard from APL2010. Devon McCormick shares his notes with us. Graeme Robertson offers a personal view. Vibeke Ulmann tells us what she liked best.

Chairman’s report 2010 BAA chairman Paul Grosvenor reviews the year.

Remembering Eugene McDonnell Roger Hui celebrates the late APL pioneer and Vector columnist

Eugene McDonnell 1926-2010

Eugene McDonnell, computer science pioneer has passed away. For many years he wrote the Vector column “At Play With J” recently collected and published by Vector Books.

Gene McDonnell died yesterday evening at home. Friends and family members were gathered, reminiscing, when Gene’s caretaker (since a stroke last week left him unconscious) came into the room to say “I think he’s passing.” And so it was.

Gene was a family man, utterly decent, generous, kindhearted; also erudite and witty. His contributions to APL were graceful as well as useful. I’m so grateful to have known and worked with him.

The McDonnell family is planning a memorial gathering at home, Sunday August 29. Jeanne can be reached at 1509 Portola, Palo Alto, 94306; phone 650 321-5260.

[Larry Breed]

Eugene McDonnell died peacefully at home in Palo Alto in the evening of August 17, surrounded by family and friends. All of us in the APL world owe him a debt for his pioneering work in APL.

I recently had the honor of writing the preface to Eugene’s “At Work and Play with J” (a collaborative editing effort of the J community and a work of which Eugene was very proud). I reproduce it here because it gives a sense of the man and his work.

In my youth, when I was just starting in APL, on receiving an issue of the APL Quote-Quad I would inevitably and eagerly first turn to Eugene McDonnell’s “Recreational APL” column. Through these columns I learned that it was possible for technical writing to be erudite, educational, and entertaining, and through them I learned a lot of APL.

Thus it was with Eugene’s “At Play with J” articles in Vector. In topics ranging from primes to permutations to pyramids to pi, with a cast of characters that included Apter, Black, and Crelle, Jacob and Josephus, Blanda and Montana and Taylor, and Scholes, the articles offered up the “smoother pebbles” and “prettier shells” found while playing on the seashore bordering the great ocean of knowledge. And we are all beneficiaries of this play.

I am pleased that Vector is publishing the collection of At Play With J as a book. I look forward to being educated and entertained once more.

[Roger Hui]

Richard Lathwell confesses

My father mentions that he taught Benoit Mandelbrot APL

2009 I.P. Sharp Associates Christmas party

Graeme Robertson has announced the 2009 I.P. Sharp London Christmas party will be held at its usual venue, The Plumbers Arms in Victoria, from 5pm on Fri 18 December.

Donald McIntyre

Roger Hui on the J Forum:

Donald B. McIntyre (1923-08-15 to 2009-10-21) passed away peacefully in the afternoon of October 21. Donald was an eminent geologist who pioneered the use of computers in geology. He was a gifted and inspiring teacher, an early and long-time APL and J user, and a friend and colleague of Ken Iverson and myself. He is survived by his wife Ann and his son Ewen. A memorial service will be held in St John’s Kirk in Perth, Scotland, this coming Friday, October 30.

Information about Donald’s life and times and his work can be found at www.mcintyre.me.uk

Professor McIntyre was a generous contributor to Vector. He is greatly missed.

Tom turns round

In a short article in the July/August issue of IEEE Software, Tom DeMarco, one of the founding figures from the 1980s of the software engineering movement, recants.

DeMarco became a major influence on SE with his 1982 book Controlling Software Projects: Management, measurement and estimation.

In my reflective mood I’m wondering, was its advice correct at the time, is it still relevant, and do I believe that metrics are a must for any successful software development effort? My answers are no, no, and no.

What does he now think?

Software development is and always will be somewhat experimental.

So now even he knows. Direct Development – is its hour come at last?

2009 Worldwide Programming Contest winners announced

Dyalog has announced the winners of the 2009 Worldwide Programming Contest.

First prize went to Ronald Chan. The judges commented:

Ronald’s submission showed impressive insight and analysis of the problems and the underlying mathematics, good use of classes. His submission ran considerably faster than any other entry. Ronald documented his solutions very well and many of his solutions were of a form to solve more general problems than the specific Project Euler problem presented. His efforts included error checking to capture invalid inputs.

Second place went to Chris King:

What set Chris’ entry apart was the brevity and compactness of his solutions. He made extensive use of operators, reduction, composition, power and limit. A good example of APL as a tool of thought.

Third place was taken by Maks Verver:

Maks had a commendable entry with good documentation, good use of APL, and good insight into the problems presented.

Vector congratulates the winners and looks forward to seeing Ronald in Princeton next month.

Origins of APL Intro

Here is the Intro sequence to the 1974 film Origins of APL

Masterminds of Programming features Adin Falkoff on the creation of APL

Interview with Arthur Whitney

ACM's Queue magazine carries an inspiring, laugh-out-loud interview with KX Systems founder Arthur Whitney.

Among other gems, the king of fast, reliable, mission-critical systems advocates editing code to maximise beauty, and tossing and rewriting as often as one can.

Iversonians on Facebook

Early in 2008 I deactivated my Facebook account for being too annoying. Early this year I reactivated the account to help promote an event I was organising, and was pleased to find it better organised and much more useful.

There is now an Iversonians group on Facebook.

APL Bay Area Users' Group meeting 11 May

The APL Bay Area Users' Group (The Northern California SIGAPL of the ACM) will meet at 7 p.m. on Monday the 11th of May at the Computer History Museum.

Catherine Lathwell will speak on her rediscovery of the history of APL.

She witnessed the wild growth of APL in the 1970s as the daughter of Dick Lathwell, who worked with Larry Breed and Roger Moore to turn Iverson notation into APL\360. Now she wonders "What is APL's contribution to science?" and has begun producing a history of APL documentary film as an independent producer with CineFocus Canada.

More information at aprogramminglanguage.wordpress.com.

The talk will be at the Computer History Museum, 1401 North Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, CA 94043

Officers for the APL BUG will be elected at the meeting. Anyone interested in standing for office should contact the chair, Chuck Kennedy.

Those interested in supper before the talk will try the new Pizzeria Venti at 1390 Pear Avenue, Mountain View, CA 94043 650:254-1120. Please RSVP to Curtis Jones if you're planning to come to the restaurant.

Remembering Mike Kingston

Vector is sorry to report the death last month of Mike Kingston. Norman Thomson writes:

He worked at IBM Headquarters at North Harbour in Portsmouth during the 70s and 80s, and was instrumental both in persuading the Finance and Planning departments there to use APL extensively, and subsequently in giving them excellent technical support. An offshoot of this was George Kunzl’s system which subsequently became ADATUM, which, if I have got it right, eventually became part of Dyalog. [Don’t think so. Ed.] As one of the ‘back room’ people he was always present at APL events and conferences, whether APL, BAPLA, or SIGAPL. Outside work he lived in Winchester and was a Lib Dem Counsellor in Hampshire, or perhaps just a candidate, I can’t quite remember which.

Catherine Lathwell's APL Diaries

Catherine Lathwell has announced her documentary film project. The project blog is at www.aprogramminglanguage.com