APL Borealis
Based in Toronto, APL Borealis is Canada's leading supplier of APL software products, services, training and support. Since its conception in 2001, the company's mission has been to provide quality and timely APL products, training, support and consulting services to a wide range of customers.
APL Borealis actively works to expand the base of APL software users and support services in Canada. Further, the company spends a great deal of time encouraging the development of APL expertise through conferences and training programs. Outside of using APL for software application development, APL Borealis also continues to explore new and innovative software solutions to the benefit of clients.
Why choose APL Borealis for your APL application development requirements?
APL Borealis:
- have a major focus on APL – they're the experts
- can offer fully developed support and training services
- pride themselves on their immediate support response
- maintain strong links to the APL community and backup resources
- have strong conference experience where they regularly present and run workshops
- are dedicated to bringing APL technology to the local marketplace
- offer expertise that goes well beyond the shrink-wrap box
Approaches and Methods – APL in Action
APL is an array-oriented interpreted programming language. The operators in the nucleus of the interpreter are symbols, and the array processing aspect of APL permits the processing of entire matrices of numeric or character data with a single instruction, without the need for iteration: in APL Borealis' experience, most APL programs can accomplish their objective in a fraction of the number of lines of code required by other programming languages, sometimes by as much as a 90% reduction. The fact that APL is an interpreter is also beneficial in the testing and debugging phase: errors are reported at the exact point in the source code and can be corrected on the spot and execution resumed – no need to recompile and remake the application every time an error is encountered. In short, APL is truly a high-level language that allows developers to write code that reflects the human thinking process as opposed to being concerned with the nuances of the machine environment.
Conformance to Wintel Standards
Today's APL interpreters offer state-of-the-art interactive programming and run-time environments that mesh seamlessly with all common operating systems and speak the same language as all compliant applications on those systems. On the dominant PC platform, APL interpreters are fully functional with all versions of Microsoft Windows. Further, these APL interpreters contain numerous built-in links to the rest of the MS-Application universe, including native functions for GUI programming, relational database support, ActiveX control programming, .Net and web-based applications. UNIX-based interpreters offer similar functionality and superb performance for high-end applications.
Ease of Support
Developing an application is never the entire process. Quite often, the on-going support role ends up consuming more time. Efficiency in performing this role is essential, both for the users' satisfaction as well as the developer's busy schedule. Because APL is interpreted, errors can be examined and rectified at their source, which makes for very fast error correction turnaround times. APL Borealis have APL applications in use across Canada and, if a user experiences an error, the application saves a snapshot of its environment in a file that can be e-mailed to a developer who can then diagnose the problem, fix it, and e-mail back a correction within minutes.
APL Borealis put great emphasis on promoting the use of APL – especially as it allows for very efficient and fast programming. Try it once and you will be addicted!
APL Borealis' reference clients include: BCA Research
APL Borealis uses the APL language to develop a range of customer applications. Key client BCA Research uses APL for economic data management, forecasting and charting services.
Founded in 1949, BCA Research has developed an enviable reputation as a world leader in the provision of independent global investment research. The firm produces leading-edge analysis and forecasts of all the major asset classes, along with clear and focused investment strategy recommendations. Research is provided to financial professionals in more than 90 countries through a wide range of products, services and meetings. APL is used at BCA Research for a wide range of strategic components including:
- multi-frequency time series databases containing financial and economic data for all major developed and emerging economies – daily to yearly timeframes are updated, edited and accessed by APL systems
- data collection – APL systems are used to download and analyse incoming data on a daily basis
- numerical and statistical investigations - APL provides a rich set of tools for analysis of economic data with a high degree of customisation
- Chart Editor graphical system – APL is used extensively to turn raw and calculated time series data into highly informative charts, using BCA's own methodology and style (example).