Subject: NY/SIGAPL Meeting Thur 10/22/98: Peter Donnelly, "New features in
          Dyalog APL/W"
    Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 11:01:01 -0400
    From: "David E. Siegel" 
      To: NYSIGAPL-REMIND@ACM.ORG

OCTOBER MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT of NY/SIGAPL, the New York City Area
chapter of SIGAPL (the ACM Special Interest Group on APL)
Title of Talk: New features in Dyalog APL/W Version 8.2
Speaker: Peter Donnelly, Director, Dyadic Systems Limited
Thursday, October 22, 1998
  at Philips Electronics North America
  1251 Avenue of the Americas, 20th Floor
  New York, NY

Executive Council Meeting, 5:30 PM; Talk, 6:30 PM
Meeting fee: NY/SIGAPL member, $5; non-member $10
Directions: 1251 Ave. of the Americas/6th Ave. is between 49th and
50th Streets. Subway stations nearby:
  Lines B D F: 47-50th Sts. 6th Ave., Rockefeller Center
  Lines N R: 49th St. near 7th Ave. (1 stop N of Times Sq.)
  Line 1: Broadway at 50th St. (1 stop N of Times Sq.)
Pay parking: Outdoor lot at the west end of the block, enter from 49th
St. (westbound) or 50th St. (eastbound); indoor lots, 50th St.,
between 8th Ave. and Broadway.

  ============================: THU.OCT,981022 :============================
|18:35|  EdShaw  : APL Group now Eventra . Russian OpenGL for Dialog V8 .
 SGI 3D grapphic language . $99 - $150
|18:44| Peter Donnelly , been @ Society of Actuaries Conf all wk .
 Dyalog V 8.2 | Multithreading

Peter Donnelly, Director of Dyadic Systems, will describe and
demonstrate the major new features of Dyalog APL/W Version 8.2, which
was announced at APL98 and which will ship during Q4 1998.
Multithreading:

        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
performing other interactive tasks at the same time.
  permits instant response to client requests
       CALC 1000
       ThreadID is CALC & 1000   |   •TID returns ID of thead inside . root 0
       O is CALC & " 10 shape 1000  . | Tested w up to 10000 thread
       •TCNUMS 0  | Returns running threads
       Been working 10 mo .  design similar to Java & other languages .
     Threads locals safe , Globals & files not safe .
     But , can do callBack .  Thread spawning thread - not nested .
      :Hold  obj    :EndHold    | controls access to critical sections .
      JohnScholes proud System does detect  deadlock .  

        Peter will explain how multithreading is implemented and will
demonstrate how it may improve throughput and responsiveness and how
it is an essential ingredient of an APL web server.

        A thread is created by calling a function asynchronously,
using the new primitive operator spawn: &. With a traditional APL
synchronous function call, execution of the calling environment is
paused, pendent on the return of the called function. With an
asynchronous call, both calling environment and called function
proceed to execute concurrently.

        Any thread can spawn any number of sub-threads, subject only
to workspace availability. This implies a hierarchy in which a thread
is said to be a child thread of its parent thread. Each thread has a
unique thread number, with which, for example, its presence can be
monitored or its execution terminated.

        Threads are implemented by the following new language
elements:
. A primitive operator called spawn: &.
. System functions:
TID,
TNUMS,
TKILL,
TSYNC.
. An extension to the GUI Event syntax to allow asynchronous
call-backs.
. A control structure: :Hold.
. System command: )HOLDS.
        BrookeAllen : TSYNC - Parallel each  .

|19:27| APL ActiveX Controls:  
        The new ActiveXControl object allows you to package a Dyalog
APL application as an ActiveX Control. To run your application, all
the user needs is your control and a copy of the Dyalog APL dynamic
link library.

        Packaged as an ActiveX control, your Dyalog APL GUI
application may be included in a program written in Microsoft Visual
Basic, Microsoft Excel, Borland Delphi, or in any other host
application that supports ActiveX.

        This allows your Dyalog APL application to be run inside a web
page hosted by Microsoft Internet Explorer or by any other web browser
that supports ActiveX.
  Class
  'F1.'   •NS •OR  'Dual'  | clone Namespace 'Dual' to generate instances .
  ActiveX control handled same way
    •WG   |
    Make OCX on )SAVE  | OCX pkgs ActiveX control so can be used by any
      compatable process .  ( packs WS w OCX stub so can be accessed )
   Dyalog.DLL  same w/o editors etc , ~ 1.5MB .
   One WS running , clones NS ( not a copy . points to unchanged objs . )
   No event in Dyalog when simply var gets changed . So need 'SetVar' fns .
  Must specify data types of args & result for ActiveX export using either
   dialog box or program .
  Cabinet downloaded ActiveX control & Dyalog.dll .
  Runtime can`t reproduce sys . does have  •FX .
 PD : Understand the tek now , just getting to understand business realities
  To certify  ActiveX controler , need to supply info abt Company to
   assure redress if crashes Disk etc .
|20:38| 
        Peter will demonstrate how easy it is to implement and
distribute applets written in Dyalog APL, which are then accessible to
any user with Internet Explorer on the World Wide Web. This capability
enormously expands the potential for the exploitation of APL in
application development.
Other Enhancements:
        Other enhancements include the following:
.       Additional APL2 language features
.       :With control structure    •CurrentSpace , localization .
                                     same construct as VisualBasic 

.       CoolBar object  MS sliding bar containing CoolBands . Can save
                          state  
.       Splitter object   written by Dyalog , ~ MS .  
.       Calendar object   training exercise for new guy 
.       TabControl object
.       Color printing of APL functions
.       Improved Bitmap support    full color  
.       PNG and GIF support  Uncompressed GIF only , UNISYS controls
                                comrpessed 
.       Web Server workspace    template 
      Permanent Session Log
        ListView improvements

      SQAPL V3.0  low level fns .
 Production version  December .
                        
More Information:
        Further details are available at Dyadic Systems' World Wide
Web site, www.dyadic.com. Or contact Beautiful Systems, Inc., which
distributes Dyalog APL products in the United States:
        Beautiful Systems, Inc.
        308 Old York Road
        Suite 5
        Jenkintown, PA 19046
        sales   800-732-3735
        voice   215-886-2636
        fax     215-886-4888
        email   Beautiful_Systems@csi.com
___________________
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