APL+WIN

[J. Clarke]

Many many many moons ago I sprung for a full APL2000 development system.
A few months ago the server on which it was installed died the death
after more than 10 years of near continous operation (near because of
power outages). It took me a while to find the installation disks
(yeah, 3-1/2 inch floppies), and needless to say the installer doesn't
even try to run on 64-bit Windows, but once I got a 32 bit VM going
version 1.8 and the update to 2.0 installed without a hitch off of
nearly 20 year old diskettes. So just for hohos I tried copying the
installed folder out of the VM to the same location on the 64-bit
machine that was hosting the VM, and by golly it came up and seems to
run fine.

I've missed the old dinosaur. Nice to have it roaring again.

[v***@gmail.com]

I have had a very good experience running APL+Win V4.0 under Linux/Mint on a machine with both Win XP and Linux partitions. I purchased the full APL2000 developer's system 15 years ago and never found a good reason to upgrade beyond V4.0.

My strategy was identical to yours.

First I installed the "wine" windows compatibility layer from the linux repositories.

I then copied the MS windows installed APLWIN40 subdirectory into the a Linux created /usr/apl directory. I fiddled a bit installing APL*Plus TrueType fonts in Linux; and with the aplw.ini file to simulate loading a clear workspace. I also fiddled with the linux read/write permissions. I used the following to perform an icon based launch to start up APL+Win. .......

wine /usr/apl/aplwin40/aplw.exe

The first time this is executed all the "wine" simulated windows subdirectories are created automatically. Each user of the O/S gets his/her simulated windows subdirectories in their linux "home" directory. It took me about two hours to get this all together, not really knowing if it would work or not. Separate win directories in each user's home dir should help security issues. If one user crashes his or her wine; for example, with a windows virus, it will not effect the other user's win directories.

APL+Win worked flawlessly under wine. All the APL+Win calls to the windows GUI are perfect. Nested arrays work perfect. My 70,000 lines of code mortgage app worked flawless. I can now use APL+Win scripts to call the Linux O/S bash commands and thus create APL scripts to perform my linux systems administrator tasks.

I tried the same with APL+Win V3.0. This also works, but I have no need to use it. I have no experience with Wine/APL+Win V5.0 or higher.

It works so well that I have totally discontinued using APL+Win V4.0 under MS Windows. There are two huge benefits.

1) I am no longer subject to Microsoft tyranny with regards to whether my APL still runs under future Windows releases. For example, the discontinuing of Win XP support by MS was an utter "non-issue" for me.

2) The only reason I ever needed APL2000 support was to keep APL running under upgrades of Windows. I do not miss any of the APL+Win enhancements of the last 15 years (ex., object oriented programming). Hey, APL is APL and has changed little over the decades. It is still as productive as ever. Theoretically OOPs is fascinating, but in the real world it is useless complication.

The APL+Win V4.0 developer's license was perpetual on one PC machine for one user; back in year 2000. It came with a freely redistributable runtime version. License-wise I see no reason I cannot install it on a large server and distribute SaaS applications on that server (or others) with the runtimes. I haven't done this yet. Feel free to pipe in with comments regarding any license issues that I may have overlooked.

I have been an APL*Plus, APL+Win, customer for over 35 years. Yet I felt abandoned by APL2000, Inc. when they went to the annual subscription pricing scheme, which I cannot afford. They won't even let me participate in their discussion forums. To that I say, "la-de-da." As I am likely the last independently active APL developer between LA and Chicago, it seems foolish of them to freeze me out of that picture. But hey, maybe they know something that I don't.

I see no reason this linux approach would not work with any open source O/S (or VM Ware virtual machine) that supports "wine." For example; FreeBSD. Does Apple support wine? I don't know. Given my druthers, I would prefer to run an OpenBSD server. Sadly, the OpenBSD wine package was dropped some seven years ago. Why? Ask Theo de Raadt.

I suspect used copies of APL+Win 3.0 and 4.0 can be found with a little leg work. Be sure to acquire the official CD install disk to prove your license rights. If anyone has a copy of 5.0 to unload, message me. If anyone else wishes to try APL+Win under wine and would like a tip or two, contact me through this newsgroup.

Regards
Vess Irvine
Denver, Colorado
STSC Alumni

[ArrayMac]

Post by v***@gmail.com
APL is APL and has changed little over the decades.

This is sooo far from my experience, which started in 1972, I have to ask what APL is being discussed. Morten's "still ahead of its time" comment still applies.

I guess for those to whom flat arrays and shared variables still suffice, APL has not changed.

[v***@gmail.com]

Post by ArrayMac
I guess for those to whom flat arrays and shared variables still suffice, APL has not changed.

My APL experience started from 1974 as an engineer on the Space Shuttle project. We are not that different.

APL*Win v4.0 has nested arrays; anything but flat. I never could understand how shared variables worked; probably because of poor documentation and my lack of access to IBM and IPSA software. In my mind the last "must have" enhancement, which v4.0 has, was the Windows GUI interface.

Nevertheless, even a 15 year old version of APL blows away any other framework, platform or language available for rapid development.

Under different circumstances Morton's APL improvements this Century certainly demand evaluation. Fundamentally those circumstances boil down to a viable business plan, established customer base, Internet product delivery and cash flow.

My old 1980-2000 business plan of licensing software on stand alone computers is deader then dead. All that remains for me is delivering end analysis consulting; for example, doing mortgage analysis due diligence on my own machine. This does lack any leverage ability on my time input, but allows me to earn a buck from time to time.

Bottom line ..... I am retired. Any future contribution I am to make will be open source; for the pure fun of it.

Vess

[Morten Kromberg]

Under different circumstances Morten's APL improvements this Century certainly demand evaluation. Fundamentally those circumstances boil down to a viable business plan, established customer base, Internet product delivery and cash flow.

FWIW, note that Dyalog APL is available at very low cost for non-commercial use, and you can select a 2% royalty model for commercial licensing, which means you pay 2% of your APL-based revenue, in arrears. If APL dosn't give you a 2% performance boost, you probably ARE better off using some other technology ;-)

Currently supported platforms are Microsoft Windows, Intel and ARM (Rasppberry Pi) Linux, Mac OS X and IBM AIX. Android to come - for more about out current plans, I would recommend starting with some of the videos from Dyalog'15, which can be found at http://video.dyalog.com/Dyalog15/

Tools for internet product delivery (and many other interfaces) are available as open source tools at no additional cost.

[Don Wiss]

Post by v***@gmail.com
I suspect used copies of APL+Win 3.0 and 4.0 can be found with a little leg work. Be sure to acquire the official CD install disk to prove your license rights.

I wouldn't. People that upgraded with each version would have official CD
install disks for each version. That wouldn't give them rights to sell off
each of the older versions.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

[v***@gmail.com]

Post by Don Wiss
I wouldn't. People that upgraded with each version would have official CD
install disks for each version. That wouldn't give them rights to sell off
each of the older versions.

You make a very good point to watch out for. Yet a mechanism to protect yourself against getting an out of sequence upgraded version would be useful. MS solved this issue by requiring an existing copy of the old version software on your computer hard drive in order to allow the upgrade to install.

APL+Win in the year 2000 time frame did not have such a control restriction built in. I also recall that APL+Win 3.0 cost me about $1,000. V4.0 cost another $1,000, or thereabouts. I don't see much "upgrade price bargain" in those dollar numbers.

I feel that the owner of a perpetual software license should have the right to sell said license to a third party in a manner that satisfies the software author. I read the actual license text a decade ago and do not recall seeing any "non-transferable" verbage. Certainly copyright law allows you to sell your old books, sheet music and music/movie DVDs under the fair use concept.

When I die I full expect my heir to continue to have the right to use my copy of APL+Win v4.0.

Of course, I am not a lawyer. I am just expressing a personal opinion. Ultimately I think APL2000, Inc. is responsible for clarifying the issue.

Regardless of all this, your knowing that APL+Win V4.0 will run on a linux or BSD computer is useful info. I'm happy. I continue to get value from my original purchase made with my hard earned cash.

Vess

[Don Wiss]

Post by v***@gmail.com
When I die I full expect my heir to continue to have the right to use my copy of APL+Win v4.0.

That seems fair.

I use version 7.2. A license for version 8.0 was paid for, but the serial
number was left behind on an e-mail server I no longer have access to. And
APL2000 was not willing to provide it to me again.

I doubt for what I do that 8.0 has any features I need.

I don't know what changed from version to version, but my version has
dynamic workspace size. No WS FULLs. You may not have that.

Don. www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).