Re: APL in Colorado, USA? Am I the last one?

Hi Morton:

I think my thread has been hijacked! Oh Well.

Your point about our ability to "hide" the APL of commercial
applications and how many customers no longer care about the tools
used to write the code, is very interesting; especially that you have
seen such changes in customer views in just the last few years.

In the case of an APL <==> AutoCAD capability using ActiveX, I think
making the APL a very visible part of the product is what is needed.

The whole idea would be to replace VBA (Visual Basic for Applications)
with APL. The reason for VBA in AutoCAD is so users can program
repetitive tasks to create components of an AutoCAD drawing. The key
word here is "programming."

Also one could query AutoCAD drawings for information to then use in,
say; a finite element analysis, which should be right up APL's alley.

If one could perform the same tasks with vastly fewer lines of code in
APL, rather then in VBA, plus the excellant code "reading" benefits of
APL, I would think AutoCAD engineers would gain a distinct advantage.

But yes, the engineers would have to learn APL in this scenario. And
they would each probably have to have a full license to an APL
interpreter.

Implementing such a product could be very easy since no user interface
is required. The APL editor would suffice. My contribution would be
mostly do***entation and case study examples to show users how to do
it, say; to design a bridge or a dirigible or an iPOD.

That plus a few cover functions to call the AutoCAD ActiveX commands.

Regards
Vess Irvine
Estes Park, Colorado, USA

PS: Hey, maybe there could be a "book" in here somewhere. Ah, but
would the book pay a decent salary to the author? LOL. Good question.