Here here.
Sorry to mention the elephant in the room, but this discussion begs
the obvious question: what is the rationale for putting on this
conference? Perhaps I missed that discussion, and if so, please
excuse me.
As we know, there are already two well-attended APL vendor conferences
in the world each year, plus several other more local gatherings.
Speaking as an APL consultant and product distributor, this puts
people in a tough spot, since we now have at least three events to
consider travelling to and attending (assuming APL2000 is hosting its
usual Florida event this year?).
I suppose I should be happy for another opportunity to meet and
network with potential APL colleagues and customers, but if it's
mainly the same small audience at each event, the costs are hard to
justify more than once per year.
I don't have any answers to this dilemma yet, but I think it requires
a lot more discussion. Just putting on a conference and hoping people
attend may, at this point I think, be somewhat counterproductive.
...richard
Richard,
In your comments you were concerned by the fact that the rationale for
APL2007 was not clear. You also mentioned that there was some sort of
a conflict with two APL vendor conferences. When the decision was made
to hold a conference in the fall of 2007, the members of the steering
committee were well aware that there was a potential conflict with APL
vendor workshops. However, we had a discussion about this issue and
finally concluded that it was a good idea to go ahead with APL2007 for
two reasons. First, the idea to hold APL2007 is to have users of
different Array Programming Languages (including APL, J, K, NIAL and
other related languages) attend the conference. SIGAPL, in addition to
fostering the discussion between array programming languages
themselves, aims to promote the array processing paradigm and its
richness in contrast to the scalar one. It is SIGAPL's vision to serve
as a counterpoint in the programming community by facilitating
communications among researchers, developers and users of Array
Programming Languages. APL2007 will be an excellent opportunity to
promote our core values in the mainstream programming community
through our conference agenda, tutorials and discussion panels. This
will benefit APL and all Array Programming Languages. Second, there
was an opportunity to meet jointly with OOPSLA. Thus, APL2007
attendees will have the opportunity to spend a few more days and
attend other presentations on object oriented programming. As far as
APL is concerned, there has been development in object oriented
programming in some APL versions. I am confident that all the APL
vendors and many APL consultants and users will attend the conference,
along with researchers, consultants or users of Array Programming
Languages. So, I am looking forward to meeting you at APL2007.
Guy Larocque
SIGAPL Chairman
