Hi Richard,
The writeup that I posted contains more material than I could accommodate in a 45 minutes presentatiion. So from the point of view of comprehensiveness, the paper is better than my presentation (I think). I would recommend that you also have a look at
http://forum.apl2000.com/viewtopic.php?t=449
and at
http://forum.apl2000.com/viewtopic.php?t=416
which I circulated to delegates at the conference.
One comment that left me baffled was 'This is the first time I have seen Visual APL, I now know what it looks like'. I was baffled because APL2000 had a series of webcasts on Visual APL (all still available at the site): somehow, a lot of people remained unaware.
The question that was asked several times was about Visual APL function signatures (relates to APL 'valence'); this tied into issues relating to data types. Visual APL copes with strong data types like C#, derived data types (types derived from strong types) and losely typed data. This topic is a little opaque to read about; however, it becomes quite clear if you start using Visual APL.
Another comment that left me lost for words was how readily some of the people I spoke to liked the idea of an APL that does not have workspaces. I expected some resistance but I believe people are now generally aware of the need for APL to be transparent rather than a black box.
Have you used the trial/evaluation version of Visual APL? If not, I strongly recommend that you do as it puts a lot of APL issues into perspective. [What did you think of the ...past...present...future... topic in the paper?] If you do, we can share ideas and solve common problems--I am still learning and would like to get with Visual APL where I am with APL+Win.
In general, I felt that the biggest concern for people was the idea of learning Visual Studio. This is natural, perhaps; however, although the expertise does not come overnight, it begins to pay dividends quite quickly. I think seeing Cielo Explorer in Visual Studio and particularly the ability to try out 'random' APL expressions and see the results appear (as in Immediate/interactive mode APL) made Visual Studio much more acceptable to people.
Regards,
Ajay