Jay Foad appointed to CTO

Jay started as a Software Developer with Dyalog on 26 April 2010. When he joined the company he brought in-depth experience, having worked with software development for many years, mostly working with the deployment of C and C++ games on mobile handsets, with just-in-time translation to native code on the device. He also implemented a runtime environment for gaming on Google's Android operating system. Prior to that, Jay spent 10 years as a Senior Developer at Tao Group. Tao developed an embedded operating system based on a virtual machine with just-in-time compilers to translate byte-code to machine code on the target device. During his time there Jay worked on many projects such as:

• Maintaining and developing a Java JIT compiler.
• Porting a JIT native code generator to many different platforms and CPUs.
• Working on all aspects of the C/C++ toolchain including an in-house port of GCC and the GNU standard C++ library, various assemblers and disassemblers, CPU simulators, and remote debuggers.

CXO Morten Kromberg says, "As CTO, Jay will be responsible for the core development team at Dyalog Ltd. During the past 5 years, Jay has impressed everyone with his ability to rapidly understand almost everything that goes on under the hood. Most importantly, he combines a keen interest in the lowest levels of hardware and software, with the ability to discuss the finest points of APL language theory with the likes of John Scholes and Roger Hui." Jay comments on his appointment: "I'm a newcomer to APL. When I started working for Dyalog in 2010 I had only seen the Game of Life video, an intriguing but baffling glimpse into a world of squiggles. But I soon got the opportunity to learn from some giants of the language, and came to appreciate the power and beauty of the notation. Later I learned that, despite its venerable history, the language is not set in stone; with care and attention we can develop and extend it to increase its power, relevance and performance, without sacrificing its elegance and simplicity. As CTO, I am responsible for day-to-day management of the core interpreter development team, and for the overall technical strategy of the company. This strategy must include getting the maximum performance out of current and future hardware, but also:

• Keeping the quality of the product as high as possible.
• Embracing new platforms and attracting new users.
• Improving our development tools, and making it easier to create and deploy new applications.
• Ensuring that Dyalog APL can interoperate smoothly with modern frameworks and services.
• Continuing to look at new ways of (carefully!) extending and improving the core APL language."

We recommend you read Jay's first blog as CTO where he explains more about his new role and goals going forward. You can find it here. Jay has a BA (First Class) in Computer Science from Trinity College, Cambridge University. On the private front Jay is married to Tania, and they have two little boys. Jay is a keen cyclist and runner, and he's prone to juggling (many!) orange balls in the office to stress down – a skill we expect he will be able to transfer to also juggle all the tasks that falls into the lap of a CTO.