Since…
Many people have been at MWM. The actual count cannot be determined as I don't own the server, but the number of e-mails relating to MWM lies somewhere in the region of 600. Without committing myself to any number, I can safely claim that actual readership is, in reality, much, much greater than that. While our counter will up twice if, for example, someone presses reload on the browser, it is quite conservative and, unlike some counters, that, for example go up a number with every page read, the counter we use prefers to stay young. Many of those who communicated with us seem to be newcomers to M and it is my impression that while MWM has achieved its goal at making more people aware of the programming language called M, it has not generated a lot of interest amongst established users. While I cannot be sure of my thoughts, I've tried hypothesizing why this could be, but could not arrive to any acceptable or logical answer. For example, the feedback page is practically owned by newcomers; information about past events and future announcements gives the disimpression that the M world is a non reality (even though we offer free news services to M companies and organizations) and information about user groups and their wares is also rigidly withheld. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated plus if you write PRIVATE in the subject line, I promise that your name will not be associated with your reflections.
MWM now has its own e-mail address, another contribution by the M-Technology Resource Center (MTRC). Our new e-mail address is mwm@mcenter.com and it compliments nicely our URL http://www.geocities.com/cbonnici. Our existing URLs (both US and UK) have remained unchanged and the e-mail address chribonn@softhome.net also stands functional, though I hope it will soon get a bit of a rest.
There aren't any real differences between MWM-001 and MWM-002, other than some page changes which I hope you find useful. In the preceding sentence, I should have said, "There aren't any real visible differences …". For more information check out the news page.
From here…
I spent some time in the teaching industry. During that time frame I was a marker for ‘A’ Level projects and exercises for the University of Oxford. For those who are not familiar with the British Educational system, students must sit for their ‘A’ Levels in a number of subjects (usually 3). Depending on the grade and combination of subjects, one alters her/his probability of making it into a particular university/faculty. For example, a student with 3 grade A in Physics, Chemistry and Biology has a very good chance of getting into medicine at a top notch educational institution. A number of students get 4 ‘A’ Levels, while some even manage 5. The mode age of students entering University is about 18.
For their ‘A’ Level Computing, students have project and exercises papers besides a couple of written papers. The main purpose of the practical papers is to test whether a student can achieve problem solutions using acceptable software development techniques, whether s/he can document the project in an acceptable manner. The exercises consist of short programming questions set by the University, while the project is a small-medium programming task chosen by the candidate (I still sometimes dream of the numerous library, payroll and stock control projects I've had to look at). Students are given a free hand in what language they choose to write their program in and marks are awarded mainly for what is presented in the 100-300 page project file. This project would be split up in numerous sections: analysis, design, annotated program listing of the program and different libraries making up the project, implementation and testing schemes together with a user's guide. Some students may include other sections (e.g. technical guide and installation guide).
During my epoch, most of the submitted code was written in Pascal and Dbase (or other X-base languages) with Basic, C and COBOL appearing less frequently. By the time I left, projects written using GUI development tools were becoming popular. I do not recall ever correcting anything written in M.
Can M be used as a generic programming language within a computing faculty? While it might not be a very efficient to write a disk copy utility in M, it excels in data handling. Those who might be new to computing, should appreciate that no programming language is capable of tackling every conceivable task smoothly and usually a programming environment would have to tip towards either being efficient at processing data or being great at writing utility/scientific programs. Programming languages that perform both do so at the expense of efficiency or ease. M is not only superb at data processing; it can support multi-user and transaction processing with relative ease. For example, a student will probably be at an advantage if s/he can claim (and explain how) the submitted work operates in a multi-user environment especially if one imagines the marker, after hours of correcting single user programs of a quasi similar nature. Some of the other programming languages are simply not capable of this without add-ons or programming knowledge beyond most of the teenagers being talked about here.
Can M be used to teach generic programming constructs? After all, the aim of the project and exercises is to (also) test such skills in a student. Many instructors try to hit as many bull's eye as they can with one programming language, meaning, that a tutor will try to utilize a language her/his pupil is becoming familiar with to demonstrate as many programming constructs as the language allows: conditions, looping, modularity, file handling, recursion, iteration, etc. Probably no other language can beat Pascal here (taking into account readability), but it is equally possible (especially once students learn how to explain program flow/dry run programs) to get almost similar results on paper and adopt them in code to any language.
If M can compete with some of the languages mentioned above why is it that a student doesn't present her/his project in M?
While the paragraphs above focus on the British educational system, I've researched a bit the equivalent US system (thanks to Alex, Alice, Max and Nikki for the help). There are big fundamental differences, but they all seem to dwindle down to what the school decides. For example if an institution adopts M, then the ex-student come out being familiar with it and will, at the very least, be aware of it throughout their lives. If one of these ex-graduates someday thinks about computerizing her/his business, s/he may say to the consultant "At school there was this great language...". Education is like going on a diet; you will only reap the full benefits of your actions after some a certain amount of investment (be it time, money, sacrifices or combinations of).
What if one had an academic pack on M? A generic pack that could easily be tailored to the needs of people using it in different countries. The pack would contain articles introducing M as a powerful language and where it is being used today, articles explaining the features of M--for example one particular heading I would use would be "Your Project, but whose language?". These articles would be aimed at school publications. The pack would contain teacher's notes and special offers that will allow the school to purchase M books at a discount. Finally one would find the necessary forms and material needed to encourage and finalize a decision by the school to buy out a license and to get the school to offer academic M implementations to its students so that these would be able to install legal copies of M on their home PCs.
If the pack can convince a school that with a reasonable investment, their two dozen 80286s, condemned to gather dust, can be revived, I think many schools will seriously consider M. Educational institutions are normally conservative and until the introduction of the computer, have always managed to use a product beyond its first life span. After that they succeeded to find another educational purpose for the socially extinct item.
While the cost of such a project would be relatively small, its cost must be borne by those who will ultimately make a sale, the vendors themselves. If MUGs are in any way involved in the marketing of this product (for example approaching the school in order to establish first line of contact) they must be compensated as this will provide the necessary encouragement to approach another school. How compensation is dealt with internally within the MUG is their own business. While it is true that some vendors do have their own offices in various countries, it might prove more cost effective and efficient to utilize the services of these groups.
As I see it, the idea presented above has a number of pluses; 1. It benefits everyone, 2. It can help boost interest in M and 3. It can work.
Harry Restall…
A few hours before we were due to go online, Harry passed away at the age of 58. Besides being a personal friend, Harry is associated with M in that he introduced this programming language in Malta (I interviewed him in the article for M Computing a few months back) and I am sure that there are people working in M-related hardware and software companies who knew him, if not in person, by name (only a few weeks ago he was telling me about a video on Malta he had prepared some time back for the company that makes Arnet cards). Besides being involved in M, Harry was involved in the introduction of Computing in Malta, when he and a group of others started giving computer lessons for a British examining board.
He was highly respected in the computing community, this being reflected in that his funeral was attended by a large proportion of the computing community.
We dedicate this issue to his memory.
