Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!ljdickey
From: ljdickey@math.waterloo.edu (L.J. Dickey)
Subject: Re: standards
Message-ID: <1992Jul24.021808.2774@math.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <1992Jul23.230951.14433@csi.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 02:18:08 GMT
Lines: 39

In article <1992Jul23.230951.14433@csi.jpl.nasa.gov> sam@csi.jpl.nasa.gov (Sam Sirlin) writes:
>
>I noticed that the current draft ANSI/ISO APL standard is available
>from gatekeeper.dec.com in pub/plan/apl/aplpd4.ps. It's dated January
>1992. Comments are to be sent to apl-stds@watmath.waterloo.edu. 
>
>I just got it and so haven't read it yet, but judging from recent
>comments some of us have a few things to say to the commitee.

That draft you mentioned is one year old, and does not
include work done at most recent meeting.  The next document
(provisional draft 5) will be distributed to standards 
committee members probably in a few months, and then will
likely appear for public review sometime in the next calendar
year.

It will have certain primitives relating to nested arrays:  enclose,
disclose, each, pick, enlist (super ravel), identical (match), depth,
first, enclose and disclose with axis specification, reduction, and
prototypes (implementation defined algorithm).  Partition is explicitly
not included in this round.  It was the decision one year ago,
implicitly ratified again this year, that any additional functionality
would go into the next round, either as a revision or as an addendum.

People who have comments about the standard, such as errors in
Provisional Draft 5, or comments about things that should be included
in the next round, may indeed express themselves to members of the ISO
committee at the address listed above, but it would probably be more
productive to direct efforts toward national working groups, such as
ANSI, BSI, DIN, AFNOR, NSI, SSI, CSA, and so on.  To the best of my
knowledge, every participating nation welcomes new participants in the
standards effort.

Leroy J. Dickey
-- 
Prof. Leroy J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, U of Waterloo, Canada  N2L 3G1
   Internet:      ljdickey@math.UWaterloo.ca
                  ljdickey@math.waterloo.edu
   UUCP:          ljdickey@watmath.UUCP
