BAA London Meeting 2009-02

Attendees

Topics Discussed

Who needs Education

Beginners; Those coming home to APL; Specialists; Customers

ZP said his approach to this discussion was based on the fact that he was in the position of having a new student/learner and his mind was focused on what he needed to know.

EM suggested that there were differing needs for IT experts and Domain specialists.

CH said he had been approached in respect of a training course aimed at C# and Java developers. Their need was dealing with a legacy system that though working was inaccessible to them.

What is available

Books (examples by Graeme Robertson); The Internet; The Vector Wiki; Dyalog’s Tutorials; Comp APL; User Groups; Courses (Infrequent and expensive)

ZP circulated sample copies of ‘APL1 & 2: A Practical Approach’ and ‘APL3 & 4: A Practical Approach’ produced by GR. See BooksAndPublications.

JS indicated that Dyalog were working with Bernard Lagrand to produce a publication that was expected to be available for the September conference. Though this publication would be oriented toward Dyalog it would cover broader APL topics.

Challenges

Keeping things up to date; Making things look fresh/exciting; Making things easy to find; Making things easy to follow.

ZP gave a brief showing of a video produced by GR and suggested that it be made available through the wicki or on uTube. (details from GR or ZP).

ZP suggested that more publicity on utube and the wicki would improve ranking and thought that more video and multi media resources would be good. CH suggested making links to a given site more widespread and using a common approach to diverting would help. JS said his understanding was that google ranks sites using hits. ZP thought that having all things on the wicki is too localised on its own and that cross pointing between sites was important. CH suggested that an HTML ‘plugin’ for APL resources that could be easily added to websites by their owners would assist in sign posting, improve navigation and help up hit rates.

CH said there was a need to show that APL has a variety flavours. JS added that Morten Kromberg had expressed a view that it would be cause for concern if Dyalog were the only APL. Asked about involving other vendors in the London meetings CH said the events had been publicised and that Dick Bowman that advised Richard Navabi. If any vendors wanted to attend they were more than welcome.

ZP pondered if the wicki could handle video. JS indicated that Morten Kromberg was looking into embedding uTube scripts. ZP also gave a brief showing of a utility used in education to convert video to flash.

Barriers to success

Finding the potential pupils; Lots of stuff in different places; The investment of time; APL Keyboards

ZP said finding potential pupils and marketing APL was an obstacle.

ZP Sees the APL keyboard is a major problem to teaching new users and outlined a vendor he had found who could produce reasonable priced key boards (details from Ziggi).

Action Points

Comments on the Venue

Ziggi was able to make effective use of the wide screen facilities in the upper bar to give his PowerPoint presentation. Having a presentation taking centre stage gave the meet quite a different flavour to previous sessions in that it provided a focus for a group discussion.

EM felt that noise coming up from the lower bar was a bit of a problem towards the end of the session.

Of course the venue is free! and quite suitable for the ad-hoc discussions between individuals. However the landlord has asked that we pick another day other than a Friday and that if we use the screen that we finish with it by 16:00.

Future topics?

Publicity
Marketing APL to mainstream IT professional and Domain specialists – Chris Hogan
NARS 2000 – Dick Bowman

CategoryBAALondonMeeting

BAALondon/BaaLondonMeeting2009-02 (last edited 2011-08-26 11:31:27 by KaiJaeger)