DYNA25: Spring Edition is taking place on 7 April in New York City. More info

Brian Becker

APL Tools Architect

Based: USA

Joined Dyalog Ltd: March 2011

Brian - Dyalog Team Member

Role Summary

Brian oversees the design and development of APL-based software tools intended to make it easier for Dyalog customers to develop applications and services for their customers. Brian has been a judge for the APL Problem Solving Competition since its inception in 2009; since then he has also taken on the role of primary problem content developer.

Biography

Brian was introduced to APL at the age of 14 during his first year of high school in 1975 when he discovered that the “typewriter” that knew how to play various games was actually a terminal connected by an acoustic coupler to the University of Rochester’s York APL timesharing system. When not involved in his studies or extracurricular activities, Brian could be found in his high school’s Mathematics Lab tinkering with APL.

On graduating from high school, Brian received the New York State Data Processing Association Award of Excellence in recognition for his work with APL. He was twice recognised by ACM/SIGAPL for innovative APL development work – once for his work in putting the full text of the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations online, and once for his development of a high-performance APL-based full text search engine.

Brian’s APL career began at I.P.Sharp Associates in 1980 where, among other roles, he was one of the first instructors of Ken Iverson’s Introduction to APL course. Brian has worked for three APL language implementors – I.P. Sharp Associates, STSC Inc., and Dyalog Ltd. APL has afforded Brian the opportunity to work in a wide variety of domains, including financial planning, manufacturing control systems, automated voice and data network design, full-text legislative and regulatory applications, electronic medical records, and governance/risk/compliance applications. Since joining Dyalog Ltd, Brian has worked on many tools and frameworks including the Dyalog File System (DFS) and several web-enabling frameworks (HttpCommand, Jarvis, MiServer, DUI, and SAWS). Brian also provides consulting services, primarily to Dyalog Ltd’s USA-based customers.

or is it Minding Boggle Performance? In the 2019 APL Problem Solving Competition, we presented a problem to solve the Boggle game where a player tries to make as many words as possible from contiguous letters in a 4×4 grid with the stipulation that you cannot reuse a position on the board. Richard Park’s 17 … Read
Thanks to our dear friend Dr. Ray Polivka, Dan Baronet and I had the opportunity to travel to Vassar College to participate in their Community Hackathon held on 5-6 February 2016. “What’s a hackathon?” you ask? Well, we did too, as we’d never participated in one before.  🙂 According to the Hackathon’s announcement: “CommunityHack is a way to … Read
How I Won the APL Problem Solving Competition – Introduction and Prize Ceremony

How I Won the APL Problem Solving Competition – Introduction and Prize Ceremony

The 14th annual International APL Problem Solving Competition took place earlier this year. Brian summarises this year's contest and introduces the grand prize winner, culminating in the award ceremony. 01:05 Introduction and explanation of competit...View

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Simplifying Secure, Scalable Web Services

Simplifying Secure, Scalable Web Services

Jarvis is Dyalog's framework for the easy development of APL-based Web Services. Once your APL code running as a Web Service you might need to address additional considerations: • Security – protecting your and your users' private information â€...View

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Packaging Dyalog Tools

Packaging Dyalog Tools

As the number of utilities and utility libraries for Dyalog grows, it's becoming more important for the APL developer to understand how to manage and employ these utilities as packages. A package can be thought of as a utility that you incorporate in...View

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How I Won the APL Problem Solving Competition – Introduction

How I Won the APL Problem Solving Competition – Introduction

The twelfth annual International APL Problem Solving Competition took place earlier this year. Brian introduces the contest and grand prize winner....View

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What's New with HTMLRenderer?

What’s New with HTMLRenderer?

Some applications need only a simple user interface, popping up a window for the user to enter a bit of data or displaying messages back to the user. Others applications may need a fully interactive, rich, graphical user interface. HTMLRenderer can a...View

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The APL Problem Solving Competition – How, What and Who

The APL Problem Solving Competition – How, What and Who

This year, for the first time, Dyalog used an APL-based server to run an interactive web site for the annual APL Problem Solving Competition, which allowed interactive experimentation while solving some of the problems. Using technologies including M...View

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Team Dyalog

We promote a culture where innovation, fun, pride, and acceptance is part of our everyday life. We come from a variety of backgrounds, and we learn from each other’s diversity.

Bjorn - Dyalog Team Member
Bjørn
Developer
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Michael - Dyalog Team Member
Michael
APL Developer
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Andy - Dyalog Team Member
Andy
Operations Manager
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Fiona - Dyalog Team Member
Fiona
Documentation Manager
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…or perhaps even join the team!

Get Support

Technical advice and assistance on all aspects of Dyalog usage is available by e-mail (support@dyalog.com) and/or telephone (+44 1256 830030 – limited to U.K. office hours). Limited advice on design and coding is available, but is not intended to replace the use of the printed and on-line documentation. Except when reporting an issue with the software, users are encouraged to seek advice from the user community via the Dyalog Forum (reading the content of the forums does not require membership).

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