Subject: NY/SIGAPL Meeting Thur 9/17/98: David E. Siegel, "Namespaces in
         APL+WIN: A Proposal"
   Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 09:37:36 -0400

SEPTEMBER MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT of NY/SIGAPL, the New York City Area
chapter of SIGAPL (the ACM Special Interest Group on APL)
Title of Talk: Namespaces in APL+WIN: A Proposal
Speaker: David E. Siegel
Thursday, September 17, 1998
  at Philips Electronics North America 1251 Avenue of the Americas, 20th
  Floor New York, NY  between 49th and 50th
Executive Council Meeting, 5:30 PM; Talk, 6:30 PM   CoSyNOTES 
Meeting fee: NY/SIGAPL member, $5; non-member $10

Before David's presentation, we'll review the recent APL98 conference
in Rome and discuss plans for the APL99 conference, to be held in
Scranton, Pa. next summer, August 10-14, 1999.
_______________
David will discuss the purposes of a "namespace" feature and how it
should be designed both to serve the various interests of APL users
and to encourage good programming practice.
        Namespaces have been implemented in some APL dialects, to
reduce name scope and avoid name conflicts. Other implementations,
including APL+WIN, do not currently support such a feature.
        David will describe his unofficial and preliminary proposal
for the design and implementation of such a feature. Topics to be
discussed include:
. Purposes of namespaces
. General principles
. Where code runs
. Visibility of objects, and changing the current namespace
. Organization of namespaces within the workspace
. Development tools
        David will present a detailed scheme for implementing these
principles and will discuss differences between this scheme and
existing implementations. Issues of available facilities and how they
would function will be discussed, as will issues of notation. Topics
in this part of David's presentation will include:
. Terminology
. Syntax of namespace names and references
. Namespace attributes
. Manipulating namespaces and their contents
. A namespace search path (pro & con)
. Namespaces as arguments to existing system commands and functions
. Stack Considerations (quadSI)
. Namespaces and system variables.
        In line with the principles discussed, features will be
omitted or restricted that David believes are likely to introduce
ambiguities or other problems or are too conducive to poor coding or
design practice, compared to their benefits.
        David considers the design he proposes to be an improvement on
those already implemented. He hopes that his proposal will stimulate
discussion, which might lead to an improved design and implementation
of namespaces, both in APL+WIN and in other APLs.
        David provides the following disclaimer: The proposal to be
discussed represents his personal opinions. Although David is employed
by LEX2000 Inc., owner of APL2000 Inc., he is not a part of the APL+
language design team. His proposal does not represent official policy
of APL2000 Inc. He does not know when, or if, APL2000 will implement
namespaces, nor in what form they might be implemented, should that
occur.
        For any official statements from APL2000 Inc., see their web
site at www.apl2000.com, send email to sales@apl2000.com, or write to
APL2000 Inc., Two Independence Way Suite 100, Princeton NJ 08540.
David Siegel may be reached by email at siegel@acm.org, or by mail at
the address above.

   
  ============================: THU.SEP,980917 :============================
|18:49| DaveSiegal abt APL99 | EdShaw OpenGL for Dyalog APL interface : ~ 150
 low level interface fns to SiliconGraphics Graphics API . by AleseiZalivine
 , student of AlexanderSkomorokhov . $150 donation to Russian Student fund .
|19:2| Name spaces . Aid encapsulation . Entities : Objects . Automatically
 change to name space by running .
 SpaceøFn  . vs inner product  f.g . |  N1  NW N3.N4 N5 | Ambiguous
 ø is compose in Dyalog . Dyalog uses '.' .
 2 exceptions : error handler needs to run in callers space .
 Locality attribute with System command to
  ELX is treated very much like a Call .  In Dyalog have •CS to change to
  calling space . Acccess attribute : Public or private . Default private .
 )PUBLIC LIST /LocalList     and   )PUBLIC spaceølist /RemoteList
 )PUBLICS    |  •AT  returns   attirbutes including public/private .
  •PUBLICS 'SPACEøPattern'   | 1 •PUBLICS  'SPøFN'  |>| HeaderLine .
 EdShaw : Any attempt to keep compatible w Dyalog ?
  Implementers  Rutiser & others . cc  EricBaelen .
  Namespace SearchPath  | Session vs WS variable - not thought abt for yrs.
  Noot NS  : # .
  Wants to remove •CS  . pernisious - enourage õ  | NS õ
   NS.•FX , must be composed , sometimes need space around ' . ' , sometimes
   not .
 Create , destroy & populate NSs :
   )MakeSpace  Space   | have • command in Dyalog .
   )MS  #øFoo‘Goo
   )COPY Foo ø A B C
   )NSAVE WS  NS   | To save NameSpace as own WS .

_______________
NEXT MONTH'S NY/SIGAPL MEETING
Thursday, October 22, 1998:
Title of Talk: New Features in Dyalog APL/W
Speaker: Peter Donnelly, Director, Dyadic Systems Limited
Peter Donnelly will describe and demonstrate the major new features of
Dyalog APL/W Version 8.2, which will ship during the fourth quarter of
1998.
        Multithreading allows you to execute more than one APL
function (or indeed any expression) at the same time. This allows you
to perform background processing, such as printing, database
retrieval, database update, calculations, and so forth while at the
same time performing other interactive tasks.
        The new ActiveXControl object allows you to package a Dyalog
APL application as an ActiveX Control that may be included in a
program written in Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft Excel, Borland
Delphi, or in any other host application that supports ActiveX. Your
Dyalog APL application can also be run inside a web page with any web
browser that supports ActiveX.
        Other enhancements to be described include: additional APL2
language features, the :With control structure, additional GUI-related
objects and support, and a Web server workspace.
        For more information about Dyalog APL/W Version 8.2, visit
Dyadic's Web site, www.dyadic.com or contact Beautiful Systems Inc.,
308 Old York Road Suite 5, Jenkintown, PA 19046 (215-886-2636, fax -4888).
_______________
To obtain a free sample copy of the September issue of the NY/SIGAPL
newsletter, Big Apple APL, email your request to jhb@acm.org
NOTE: CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ONLY BY REGULAR MAIL, OR BY FAX
--For delivery by mail, please be sure to include your FULL postal address.
--For delivery by fax (USA and Canada only, please), include your fax number.

;

CoSy The NoteComputer

Feedback : bob@cosy.com