Meeting - July 13th

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Programming With APL


APL stands for "A Programming Language" and is also the title of a book,
published in 1962 (1962?!? Did they HAVE programming languages back
then?!?) about programming, selected algorithms, and how to express them.
The author of that work went on to provide a very compact complete description
of the first general-purpose computer produced by IBM, the System 360. In
1968, APL became one of the first languages available on the System 360, and
it has been in use ever since, by many different users and in a wide variety
of applications.

In some ways, APL was to the 1970's what the PC was in the 1980's, a way for
users to circumvent the corporate data hierarchy and get a great jump in pro-
ductivity. Now, in the 1990's, APL is undergoing something of a revival, as
the need for rapidly changing software and "applets" becomes more important
than ever.

We'll take a look at APL, how to use it, what it's suitable for, and how
to use it under Linux (which is another story mixing the old and the new).

 Robert Brown is a founding member and current chairman of KLUG, and has 
over20 years experience in software development in numerous environments, 
disciplines, and industries. An intermittant user of UNIX systems for close 
to 10 years, Bob has developed software for the distributed processing and 
client-server models, and now has his first experience in building and 
administering his own network. When he's not bouncing between network nodes, 
or client, he can be seen cycling on the Kal-Haven trail, hiking the 
countryside in search of nature photographs, or helping to organize 
volunteer activities around computing, for KLUG and the ACM (Association for 
Computing Machinery). Robert is also working on OpenAPL, a Free Software APL interpreter, based on code written by Ken Thompson, one of the ORIGINAL developers of UNIX.

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Coming to three meetings qualifies you as a full member of KLUG, meaning that 
you can participate in the process of making formal decisions, including vot-
ing for officers.

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Our meeting place, THIS TUESDAY at 7 PM is:

Dunbar Hall, room 2205, on the campus of Western Michigan University.

Maps and directions can be found at
http://klug.armintl.com/meetings/maps.html                                      

All are welcome.

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The KLUG web site is:

    http://klug.armintl.com/