BAA

The British APL Association (BAA; infrequently BAPLA) is a user group founded in 1984 in England to promote APL, and the publisher of Vector journal. It is funded by its sustaining members, which include corporate users and the APL vendors APL2000, Dyalog Ltd., Kx Systems, and MicroAPL.

The BAA was a Specialist Group of the British Computer Society from its early years (possibly beginning after APL86 ) until it left in response to increasing requirements made by the BCS in 2008.

Symposium
From 2008 and until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the BAA London group arranged a monthly open-for-all meet-up, called the symposium, at the The Hoop and Grapes pub on Farringdon Street in London. No sign-up was required.

Vector journal
In 1984, BAA publised the first issues of Vector journal, which gradually took the place of APL Quote Quad as the de-facto leading publishing channel for APL content. The journal featured submitted articles on array programming including J and K, as well as news from APL and other array language vendors. Beginning in 2005, with volume 21 issue 4, the journal was issued online as well as in print, and some prior articles have also been made available online. It was published quarterly until 2004, when late and sometimes skipped issues began to interrupt its formerly regular schedule. Releases slowed more significantly after 2008, and in 2016, following the completion of volume 26, the journal moved entirely to online publishing. So far a single issue has been published this way, in 2019.

BAPLA 09
The British APL Association held a 2-day conference, BAPLA 09, on June 8th & 9th 2009 at DeVere Hotel, Wokefield Park, near Reading, UK

Webinar
In response to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, BAA arranged a series of webcasts to replace their regular monthly symposium.

The Webinars, which were held using Zoom, consisted of half an hour of social interaction, followed by a single presentation of about an hour, and a Q&A session. The sessions were recorded with subsequent publication on YouTube.

Organisation
The BAA is administered by a committee of officers elected by ballot of Association members at the Annual General Meeting. Working groups are also established in areas such as activity planning and journal production. Offers of assistance and involvement with any Association matters are always welcomed.

Funding for the BAA comes entirely from the sustaining members. In many cases, these sustaining members also provide manpower and administrative assistance to the association at their own cost.

The current chairman is Paul Grosvenor.