The Cathedral and the Bazaar
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I have been attending APL conferences for just under a quarter century now, and the one theme that runs through many conversations at all of them is how "APL is dying". Between conferences, I hear this time and time again, usually most loudly from people least qualified to know the truth of such remarks. In some organizations, this takes on the momentum of a self-fulfilling prophecy, usually promoted by those who have something to gain from ending the use of APL.Similarly, people often express surprise when I tell them I develop software in APL. The most common answers I get are "You can't be serious! Is APL still available?" or "I thought that was only on mainframes!" or "Really? When I was in school, I really liked APL, but no one uses it anymorel, so I now program in ____."Moreover, I'm sure the great majority of us have had similar experiences; although each of these experiences may be anecdotal, taken together they highlight questions about the health of the APL community.Instead of looking inward, and engaging in exercises such as trying to determine the number of APL programmers in the world, or becoming defensive about who we are and what we have to offer, I decided to take a look outside our little corner and examine two other populations that have re-invigorated themselves. Specifically, I will recount briefly the stories of the LISP community, and the "Free Software" community, as lead by Linux. We'll see if we can draw some lessons, perhaps a common message from this. Is there something we can call an "APL community"? If so, can it be re-envigorated? How would this be undertaken?