Dyalog ’07

Version 11.0 of Dyalog introduced classes to the APL language. This course takes a pragmatic APLers eye view of object orientation and, after introducing a little OO theory, the focus of the course will be on showing how OO has been implemented in Dyalog. Some time will be spent creating classes and using them. If time permits some of the more advanced features (for example, how it integrates with .Net) will also be introduced.

Many applications can benefit from using "Office Products" like spreadsheets and word processors for data entry or presentation, or for other types of processing. Dyalog can be "in the driving seat", using external products as "servers", or be used as an embedded component driven by applications written in scripting languages like Visual Basic for Applications, within other products.

Richard will introduce the subject using Microsoft Office products, focusing primarily on Excel as both server and client. Later, the same concepts will be briefly explored using other Office products and database tools.

Version 11.0 of Dyalog APL integrates comfortably with the Microsoft.Net framework. This course will give an overview of, and show how you can take advantage of, the features included in the Framework itself, and in Visual Studio, Microsoft’s cross-language development platform. John will show you how to find and understand documentation of the framework class libraries, and he will introduce you to some of the most useful classes. We will explore how to use the VS Form Designer to build forms which use APL code, and write APL classes which can be used from C# and VB.Net. The course will very briefly show how to call APL code from Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).

Class objects and SALT open up new ways to construct Dyalog applications. In this workshop we'll write a simple address book application with SALTed source code and some class objects.

This course will cover the basics of using the .Net builds of SharpPlot (RainPro) and NewLeaf directly from Dyalog. It will also offer existing RainPro users some hints on conversion, and a set of cover functions which (almost) retain the existing interface.

Several simple charts will be developed in easy stages and incorporated into a typical glossy report along with text and tables. If any of the participants have a particular charting challenge, please bring it along and we will see how close SharpPlot can get in the time available. The new Microsoft Silverlight format will be briefly introduced, and some of its more interesting tricks (such as animations) will be explored.

John will walk through a number of real examples of integrating Dyalog APL and Microsoft .Net. Samples and applications are welcome from the attendees, where the solutions can be explored, or, if necessary, solutions can be found to any outstanding problems.

The ubiquity of web browsers makes them a key user interface tool. Web pages are written in HTML. An ultralight developer would want the HTML to be simple and lucid, but most web sites are produced using design software that generates voluminous and barely-readable code. The ultralight developer, racing along with APL and simple tools, needs Web interfaces that don't bog him down.

This workshop introduces ultralight methods of writing simple, sharp and professional looking web sites. We shall use simple Dyalog tools to remove repetition from the source, and look at code for generating more complex sites. We'll also preview Dyalog 12.0 Unicode with a bilingual site in English and Japanese. Finally, we'll look at the use of WildServer to serve pages written by the server.

Jeffry Borror is the author of "q for mortals". Adrian Smith is the father of SharpPlot (nee RainPro) and NewLeaf, Stephen Taylor is an Agile Array Language Evangelist and the current editor of Vector. Together, they will help us explore the combined capabilities of kdb+, Dyalog, SharpPlot and NewLeaf.

kdb+ is a fast array-oriented database system which can be accessed through the k language, or as a relational data base using q notation. k can be viewed as a "reduced instruction set" dialect of APL, with focus on simplicity and performance. Dyalog is a dialect of APL which has grown to include object orientation, GUI tools and a wide variety of interfaces to other computing platforms or frameworks.

Together with our colleagues at Kx Systems, we have assembled a team of experts to present a full day workshop on the advantages of combining these to array-based products in order to quickly build high-performance database applications with high-quality graphical interfaces – all while remaining in an array – and domain-oriented programming mode. The workshop will kick off with presentations by the CTOs of Kx and Dyalog:

• Simon Garland, (Kx CTO): 2 + 2 = 22 (for some values of 2)
  Simon discusses some of the areas where APL and kdb+ complement each other – and the benefits of staying within a similar mindset when forced to go beyond a single language solution to complex problems.
• Morten Kromberg (Dyalog CTO): Fast, Vector-Based Front-end for kdb+
  Following on from Simon Garland's talk, Morten will demonstrate how Dyalog can be used to put a graphical front-end on kdb+ – and how Dyalog applications can use kdb+ as a fast database system.

Stephen Taylor, Jeffry Borror and Adrian Smith will then present a hands-on workshop showing how to combine kdb+, Dyalog, SharpPlot and NewLeaf to build spectacular analytical applications.