Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!kepler1!rjfrey
From: rjfrey@kepler.com (Robert J Frey)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Subject: Re: Dyalog question
Message-ID: <437@kepler1.kepler.com>
Date: 13 Sep 90 15:05:35 GMT
References: <7273@umd5.umd.edu> <1990Sep12.094140.107@ste.dyn.bae.co.uk>
Reply-To: rjfrey@kepler1.UUCP (Robert J Frey)
Organization: Kepler Financial Management, Ltd., Setauket, NY.
Lines: 45

In article <1990Sep12.094140.107@ste.dyn.bae.co.uk> adam@ste.dyn.bae.co.uk (Adam Curtin) writes:
>
>I worked for Dyadic until January, and unixfiles and xutils
>are about 90% my code (the rest being due to Martin Tann).
>

A great piece of work!

>
>In the absence of nfiles, and not wanting to put you off using my program (!),
>don't neglect monadic []SH. The right argument can be any shell command line,
>whose output is captured (if the result is assigned) to a vector of vectors,
>one element per line of output. This opens up the use of tr, sed, awk,
>pipelines of uniq, sort, pr, ... the sky's the limit.
>

This is a great environment to work in. We often prototype in APL, but are
easily able to integrate normal UNIX tools via monadic quadSH. We
then identify code we want to implement as AP's and prototype them as 
shell scripts or "quick-and-dirty" programs, integrated with monadic quadSH
and/or ASCII files written and read with unixfiles and xutils. Finally, the 
required code is implemented as standard AP's and we use dyadic quadSH so 
they appear in the APL workspace itself as functions.

Obviously, in the early stages of this process we make extensive use of monadic
quadSH and the unixfiles and xutils AP's. This iterative refinement of imple-
mentation details allows us to focus on basic design issues early on and helps
us get a working system up and running very quickly and continue to improve it
steadily as time goes on.

On the research side, because so much code is experimental or run-once-then-
throw-away, having a method for linking existing tools into APL with a trivial
amount of work is important. Also, many of our researchers are hired for their
mathematical, not programming skills, and quadSH, unixfiles and xutils are
easier to use than AP's (though not as efficient).

>
>Dyadic are now at Riverside View, Basing Road, Old Basing, Basingstoke,
>Hampshire RG24 0AL, UK.
>Tel: +44 256 811125; Fax: +44 256 811130.
>
-- 
Dr. Robert J Frey, Kepler Financial Management, Ltd.
rjfrey@kepler.com *or* frey@chaos.sunysb.edu
voice: (516) 689-6300 * fax: (516) 751-8678