We are happy to announce that the full set of recordings from Dyalog ’20 online is now available. So if you missed the all or any of the talks, or would like to revisit one of the presentations, head over to https://dyalog.tv/Dyalog20!

It was disappointing not to be enjoying Portuguese food and drink with you all in Olhão. On the other hand, it was wonderful to be able to share our plans and user stories with so many people who would not normally be able to travel to one of our user meetings. According to the statistics, we had about twice the usual number of attendees, and Dyalog ’20 may have been the largest gathering of APL users in the last quarter century!

We learned that we need to invest in better microphones and find better solutions for chat both during and between the presentations, but in general we feel that the online format worked so well that we are making plans to run similar events in the future, even if international travel restrictions should ease and we are able to meet many of you face to face in Portugal this coming October. We are still thinking about the details, but it is likely that we will host an online meeting each spring with a focus on new users of Dyalog APL, while the autumn (fall) meeting will continue to provide experienced users with the usual “deep dive”.

We are also planning to offer workshops and other training sessions at other times of the year, and continue the regular series of webinars. Travel restrictions are helping to accelerate our plans to provide a steadily increasing quantity of online material. If there is sufficient interest, I am willing to expand my talk on Docker containers into a half-day “Bring Your Own Application” workshop early in 2021. If you would like to attend this workshop, or you have ideas for other topics for webinars, workshops or talks at future user meetings, please write to usermeeting@dyalog.com and tell us about it!

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Three weeks from today, Gitte Christensen and I will be opening the 2020 Dyalog user meeting. Like so many similar gatherings, we are moving online; this year’s meeting will consist of two 4-hour sessions on Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th November, running from 14:00 to 18:00 UTC. Our hope (so far confirmed by advance registrations) is that this format will allow many more people to attend than a normal meeting, which requires you to set a full week aside and spend money on travel. We hope that the timing will allow attendance from a large part of the globe, and of course it is our intention to make recordings available afterwards for those unable to attend live.

I do subscribe to the proverb about all clouds having silver linings: although all the user meetings that I usually travel to attend have been cancelled or postponed, and I have missed meeting many of you face-to-face this year, it is important to note the unexpected side-effect; there is significantly more APL content being generated and made generally available than ever before! I hope that you have all noticed that Dyalog and the British APL Association have been holding online sessions every two weeks since the spring! A good place to keep track of these events is our event calendar at https://www.dyalog.com/dates-for-your-diary.htm.

Two four-hour sessions is obviously a lot less than the usual 3.5 days plus workshops. You should be able to find a good deal of the “missing” material, such as Adam Brudzewsky’s five-part series on features of Dyalog Version 18.0 (and my own introduction to the new release) at https://dyalog.tv/Webinar, where you can watch it at your leisure.

During Dyalog ’20 we will focus on giving you updates on the most important activities that the team behind Dyalog APL is currently working on. Also, although you may have to wait for Dyalog ’21 in Portugal to meet the winner of the APL Problem Solving Competition in person, Andrii Makukha from the University of Hong Kong will be giving his acceptance presentation online on the Tuesday. Chris and Michael Hughes will give us an update on a tool called qWC, which simplifies the transformation of existing Windows applications into web apps.

Calculating estimates for the paths of debris from M/S Irma.

At Dyalog ’19, Tomas Gustafsson, author of the stunning Stormwind boat/ship simulator (real time physics engine implemented in Dyalog APL) told the story of the successful search for the M/S Irma, which was was lost in a sudden autumn storm between Finland and Sweden 50 years ago. Because a Finnish TV channel was producing a programme about the Irma, Tomas asked us not to publish the recording of his presentation last year. The embargo has finally been lifted, and we are now able to present the final recording from Dyalog ’19. In Tomas’ Dyalog ’19 video, you can hear Tomas tell the story of how, despite massive search efforts, said to be the biggest ever in Finnish history, the Irma accident became a mystery. No distress signals were heard during that fatal autumn night, and Irma had chosen the weirdest routes. Only one body was ever found, days later, at an unexpected location. Wreckage from the ship was discovered in the archipelago at multiple contradictory spots. Irma was found in May 2019 by a group of enthusiasts (including Tomas). The reverse drifting patterns calculated using Dyalog played a crucial role in the success of the search. Tomas will be back at Dyalog ’20 to entertain us with the story of his latest adventure: the search for a 500-year-old wreck, the Hanseatic hulk Hanneke Vrome, which left Lübeck at the brink of winter in 1468, to avoid Danish pirates.

I look forward to welcoming you to Dyalog ’20 on November 9th.

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