Exciting! A Newbie's View of the APL2000 Conference --by Teresa Camarillo-Ma~dell Chicago, Illinois APL community: Exc/t/ng! My introduction to APL came slowly and over many years. My co-worker, Jerry Fusselman, seemed to be the final hold-out APL programmer in our company, but boy was he enthusiastic and confident about what he could do with the language. His enthusiasm is what got me interested in programming and his ability to solve problems I was having got me interested in APL. Armed only with a copy of Polivka and Pakin's APL: The Language and Its Usage (and immense patience from one Jerry Fusselman), I began my feeble attempt at learning APL. With the support of my co-worker I began working on simple APL progranaming tasks that were parts of bigger projects. Seeing my initial progress as a good sign, I was sent to this year's APL2000 conference to learn APL from the master: Ray Pofivka. Ray's class was supposed to give me the structure that I could not seem to get from reading a book and doing the exercises on my own, it did just that. Before I knew it, I was no longer boggeddown by the complexities of nested-arrays; I was interested in learning what was possible. APL no longer seemed an obstacle, but a tool. On the second and third day of the conference I attended several sessions that only added to my excitement about the future of APL programming. While each session focused on individual appflcafions of APL and other Windows utilities, they all seemed to emphasize the bigger picture: APL using Windows innovations to create new and exciting appficafions. A couple of the sessions I found interesting were those focused on APL applications on the Internet and the future of APL in that forum. Coming from a strictly DOS-APL background, I was stunned by the enhancements that were available to me. Days two and three contained all sorts of things that I had never seen before. VML was a completely new concept to me and Adrian Smith's lecture introduced the material by using a hands-on approach. My thought at the end of the session was: "I can make those." Those are simple text flies. With APL as a driver, I can create these things sys tematicaUy. Brian Chizever was great during his demonstration of the Windows API toolkit. Never having seen Windows APL applications before didn't phase me a bit. Brian presented the material simply as "things I think are cool." I can already see m y s d f u s i n g some of the Windows APL utilities he covered in my job as a screen-sys tem tester. T h e Code Walker review by Eric Baden and Jairo Lopez is probably going to be the biggest help to me. Even though I am a newbie, I know that you cannot produce an application ifyou do not know how to use the debugging tools. Although learning NE SIMPLE WORD CAN EXPRESS MY IMPRESSION o f t h e how to use utilities by reading manuals is fun, I think their review has given me some helpful insights into what experienced programmers do to debug their code. It was obvious to me, by the audience interaction, that these people use their product and address the needs of their cfients. Certainly, the most exciting session for me was Fred Waid's presentation on the future of the Internet. Although I had heard many stories about Fred's ideas, he was able to get me excited about the Internet. Fred made me feel like APL was the place to be. We were riding along on the advancements of Windows and JavaScript. By the fourth day, my mind was reefing from the possibilities. Visions of Windows APL appficafions and Internet-server applets were fighting for my attention, yet I had one more day of coursework. Although it was hard to sit still believing that APL no longer had limits, I knew that I first had to learn more about the language itself. Patrick Parks Thanks to Ray, APL is no longer a hindrance. Thanks to the great group of people I met while at the conference, I now have some extra notes on nested-arrays--thanks to John Walker for not forgetting our conversation and sending me Patrick Parks' write-up on nested arrays, and above all I have a new appreciation for APLers. You are by far, the most open and interactive group of people I have met in years. I hope that within the next year I can write my very first Windows APL appfication. I also hope that within the next couple of years I'll be able to interact more often with the APL community. I'm certainly looking forward to next year's meeting. • Teresa M a n d e l i can be reached at "Tmandell@PoOSystems. corn".

/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/exciting-a-newbie-s-view-of-the-apl2000-conference-xXoWnLeR1c