I shared this video on Myspace on July 20, 2009 where it has received 4604 views as of today.
Archive for the 'APL/J/K The Movie' Category
Well, hot dang! Youtube decided I get more time. They sent me a note last week: Congratulations! You can upload videos longer than 15 mins. This is GREAT news and I’m celebrating by uploading the synopsis of Ken Iverson’s Toronto memorial service I made back in 2004 when I first fell in love with my video camera.
I’m looking forward to a 2012 that is just as fast paced as 2011. And for whatever it’s worth, I didn’t blog as much as I did last year which is something you will notice in this post of photos. Yes indeed, a picture is worth 1000 words.
In fact, we only made 12 posts for 2011 and in spite of this low showing, my faithful readers, according to a report WordPress sent me last night:
This blog was viewed about 9,700 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
I’m thrilled! Rock on!
Happy New Year Everyone! Let’s kick some more ass in 2012.
As they say in rock and roll, “You can’t always get what you want… but you just might find you get what you need…”
When Ken Lettow asked me if he could swing down to North Carolina for my interview with Professor Fred Brooks, I answered with a resounding and emphatic, “NO!”
You gotta love Ken. Persistence is his middle name. He then proceeded to convince me that he would not bring havoc to my film set and in fact, he would make himself useful. And a short training session later… I have a sound engineer and set photographer all in one enthusiastic bundle of a subject matter expertise. In short, a much appreciated helping hand.
In honour of the 90th anniversary of Ken Iverson’s birth Ken Lettow sent out a wonderful account of our adventure to North Carolina to the J-Chat forum:
As [KEI and Prof Brooks] developed course material for the class, Ken began to formalize the notation that came to be known as APL, the “the blackboard version” as Eugene McDonnell once so aptly put it. Their collaboration ultimately resulted in the publication of two books, Ken Iverson’s “A Programming Language”, in 1962 and “Automatic Data Processing” by Iverson and Brooks, published in 1963. They also became lifelong friends during this period.
You can read Ken’s full text here. He’s also posted a great set of photos.
Happy holidays everyone. May the Force be with you always.
Last year we discovered that the first APL workspace was saved November 27, 1966 at 18.53.59. (GMT); the excitement of this momentous event pulling the guys away from home and the American Thanksgiving holiday. Today we know that this evidence isn’t 100% the truth… it’s more like 99.7% truth… According to an eyewitness account from my dad history has been slightly amended… if only by a few seconds!
Should today be APL’s official birthday?
It just so happens that 2012 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of that one little book, “A Programming Language“. THE one little book, that Harvard deemed too small to launch its author, Kenneth E. Iverson into a tenure track position. Harvard sent Ken packing! It wasn’t until much later that Ken’s work and this one little book was recognized by the world, winning the Turing Award which is recognized as the “highest distinction in Computer science” and the “Nobel Prize of computing“.
The moral of this story?
Do it right and do it well. Happy Birthday APL!
Many thanks to Rick Procter who reminded me about the significance of 2012 earlier this fall.
I have a Stats exam next week and because I really should be studying, I thought I’d drop you a quick note.
First, a special announcement: the J folks are planning a conference RIGHT HERE in Toronto July 23rd &24th 2012. Come one! Come all!
The J-community has really stepped up to the plate in terms of financial and in-kind labour for this documentary project. Let’s face it folks, unless you’re Fred Brooks, Arthur Whitney or Eric Iverson, or a dozen or so other stars, wanting to be in the documentary doesn’t do much for me.
I expect you noticed I was in Chapel Hill last month. Luckily, Roger Hui alerted me to the fact that The University of North Carolina has a programming gem in their freshman class who, at all of 18, has already made a splash in the J programming forums. Welcome Marshall Lochbaum, and his former high school math teacher Henry Rich (pictured above).
And of course, less obvious was my visit to NYC to see for myself what amazing work is going on at Kx. If you haven’t watched the video of our Simon Garland in action (with moderator Tom Groenfeldt) you’re missing the cutting edge.
OK! Off I go… Exam prep is really not that bad… or so I keep telling myself…
The second vlog is now up and ready for you to see. It is a special conference edition, that showed live in Boston on Monday, Oct 3, 2011.
My apologies for the extra “click”. Videos on the landing page, even from Youtube, kill load times and then clunk, down goes your Google ranking. (If that sentence is not English, what is it?)
So, the vlog now has it’s own page, in a Youtube “player” that will also allow you to see past vlogs, should you so desire.
Enjoy. Good Day. And thanks so much for watching.
Klout reminds me this morning that my “influence” has dropped 50%. I guess this is what happens when one doesn’t participate in cyberspace these days, you get an automated email: “Hey! YOU’RE not the cool kid!” Yikes.
The truth is I’m so busy, I can’t believe it. I got into that Statistics class I was hoping to avoid because last week it was full. It’s still full, but now with me in it. Damn. That’s good. Right?
Fortunately, I had the foresight to hike up to Manitoulin Island to visit my dad on his new farm before it all began. The farm is not actually new, he moved up there two years ago, but this was my first venture. If you’re wondering why it took me so long look at the map.
So, while I was there, dad worked. I did nothing except wander around and photograph small and wild things. And try to capture the moon and clouds. And poke around in his private business. I brought back his journals from 1966 to 1977 among other bits and bobs. And it turns out that my dad is perhaps a bit of a book thief, so I now own a couple books which previously graced the libraries of Ken Iverson and Adin Falkoff.
Incidentally, Sage, the infamous cat in the box loves country life and slept at my feet while I was visiting.
Now it’s back to the rate race. Hey! Up my Klout! I wanna be the cool kid again!
(Just kidding. I know it’s not Klout that makes me cool. To borrow from Manuel Simone, it’s intellectual badassness.)
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