Bob Smith
Robert "Boolean Bob" Asa Smith is an APL programmer, designer, and implementer, known as the development manager of NARS at STSC, and the independent developer of NARS2000. Born in Laurel, Maryland, Smith first encountered APL in 1969 while working for NSA, and left for STSC in 1971 in order to study and contribute to the language.[1] There he would earn the nickname "Boolean Bob" for his influential publications regarding the use of boolean data in APL, among other things for representing partitioned data; these were eventually collected under the title "Boolean Functions".[2] Smith also became involved in the study of the emerging nested array model,[3] leading to the eventual release of NARS, the first nested APL dialect, in 1981.[4] In addition to the influence of NARS on nested APLs (in part through Dyalog APL), Smith contributed to IBM's APL2 through discussions with Jim Brown.[5]
Smith left STSC in 1983 and subsequently founded Sudley Place Software together with his wife.[6] In 2006, he released the open-source NARS2000, conceived as a successor to NARS, through the company. Much like NARS had promoted ideas from Iverson's Operators and Functions to the APL community, NARS2000 surfaced features from J and elsewhere alongside new developments. Smith continues to add and refine experimental features in NARS2000, and publish documentation and papers on current and potential future APL design.
Besides working on new dialects, Smith was the editor of the APL Quote Quad's problem section, and has developed many system-level tools, including the 386MAX memory manager.
Publications
- "A programming technique for non-rectangular data" (pdf) at APL79.
- "Nested arrays, operators, and functions" at APL81.
- "Writing interpreters (panel)" at APL85. With Robert Bernecky, Geno Coschi, James Ryan, Philip A. Van Cleave, and James Wheeler.
- "50 Years of APL Datatypes: From Booleans to Hypercomplex Numbers" (pdf, video (39 mins)), L02 at Dyalog '16.
External links
- APL Projects at Sudley Place Software
- Sudley Place Software
- Array Cast episodes NARS2000 and Implementing NARS2000
References
- ↑ Roger Hui and Morten Kromberg. APL since 1978. §0.6.2 Personalities. ACM HOPL IV. 2020-06.
- ↑ Bob Smith. "Boolean Functions". STSC, 1982.
- ↑ Bob Smith. 50 Years of APL Datatypes, paper for Dyalog '16 L02, p. 6.
- ↑ Carl M. Cheney. APL*PLUS Nested Arrays System (reference manual). STSC. 1981.
- ↑ Jim Brown. The Origins of APL2 at APL94.
- ↑ Bob Smith. 50 Years of APL Datatypes, paper for Dyalog '16 L02, p. 14.
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