Community/Conference2014

Welcome to the Jsoftware Conference 2014 page.

Jsoftware incorporated in February 1990 and February 2015 will be 25 years! The 2014 conference is smack-dab in the middle of our 25th year! Please join with others from the worldwide J community in Toronto this summer for fun, sharing and to mark the occasion.

Jsoftware has set the dates and booked the venue. We are in the process of selecting caterers and arranging a banquet, and will manage registrations. The rest is up to you!

How you, and the rest of the community, respond and develop this page will determine the overall tone, details, and success of the conference.

Organizer

Most things will sort out interactively on this page. If you have a question or concern that requires a more direct touch, please email conference organizer Liz Giddens (Liz dot Giddens at jsoftware dot com).

Dates

The conference is July 24/25 (Thursday/Friday) 2014. Both days start at 9:00 a.m. with a continental breakfast at and sessions run to 6 p.m. The first day ends with an open bar reception and banquet.

Venue

The conference is in Toronto and will be held in Snell Hall at the The Cathedral Centre, 65 Church Street, Toronto.

Catering

Each day starts with a continental breakfast and includes lunch. Beverages and snacks are available throughout the day.

Banquet

To celebrate the 25th year of Jsoftware a banquet will be held in The Boiler House Loft at 18 Tank House Lane in the Distillery District. At 6:00 on Thursday, the plan is to walk from the Cathedral Centre (or a 5 min. cab ride) and meet at 6:30 on the patio of the Boiler House Loft for cocktails, with dinner upstairs at 7:30. Dress is conference wear casual. The idea is to provide the maximum opportunity to mingle and chat, with good food and drink, in an informal atmosphere. After dinner, jazz/blues pianist, Bill Gilliam and vocalist, Chris Lowry will perform a short set of Bob Dylan songs - all the songs you thought you knew!

The Distillery District is an exciting historic and entertainment district a twenty minute walk or short street car or cab ride from the conference venue at The Cathedral Centre.

thedistillerydistrict.com wikipeidia.org/wiki/Distillery_District

SEGWAY and Walking Tours are available in The Distllery District. They need to be booked in advance, please call 416-642-0008 or email sales@segwayofontario.com to book or for more information.

Pub

P.J. O'Brien at 39 Colborne Street is the "official" conference pub for Wednesday evening before the conference start and Friday evening after the conference close. The pub is just minutes from the conference centre (1 block south of King and 1 block west of Church). If you feel like meeting for a sociable beverage, Bob Bernecky and Eric Iverson will be in the Pat Quinn Lounge at 6:00 on Wednesday, July 23.

Registration

Register for the conference at Conference 2014. Early registration makes for a better conference and is much appreciated by the conference organizer.

Early (before May 1st)

• conference $1000
• student $100
• extra banquet/reception $50

Late (after May 1st)

• conference $1400
• student $100
• extra banquet/reception $50

New Eyes

Let's get word out beyond the J forum. Post to others you think might be interested. Record your efforts here so we don't duplicate and perhaps to stimulate more ideas.

Proceedings

Journal of J will publish conference proceedings in a special August issue.

If you want your conference contributions to appear in Journal of J, deal directly with them on required format and deadlines. Contact them through their web site or through the forum.

Speakers

Speakers are by invitation. If you are interested in speaking, please send a brief message with name and abstract to the conference organizer. There are slots available, but they may go quickly, and you are encouraged to contact us as soon as you can make the commitment to attend.

Speakers must register and pay the registration fee. With a high proportion of attendees speaking it is not possible to have them subsidized by non-speakers.

• Baker, John - JD Bitcoin Blockchain Spelunking
• Basum, Christoph von - J in Application Programming
• Burke, Chris - kdb+ introduction and J802/Jqt overview
• Costigliola, Thomas - Experimenting with Concurrency in the J Interpreter
• Feathers, Michael - Ruby and J
• Foad, Jay - Dyalog for Array Language Programmers
• Garland, Simon - Keep a Benchmark in your Rucksack
• Harms, Tracy - Speaking of J
• Harrington, J. Patrick - Does J have a Place in Scientific Computing?
• Hui, Roger - Index Of, A 30 Year Quest
• Iverson, Eric - JHS and Jd
• Kromberg, Morten - Dyalog for Array Language Programmers and Raspberry APL Pies
• Leibs, David - Blocks
• Lettow, Ken - Jd at !ThomasNet
• Lochbaum, Marshall - Using Data as Code
• McCormick, Devon - Array Thinking
• Miller, Raul - J Observations
• Reiter, Cliff - J in the Mathematics Classroom
• Seppälä, Anssi - Developing Perfect Energy Data Management with J
• Taylor, Stephen - Software Aesthetics
• Therriault, Robert - Jsoftware.com: An Ecology of Learning?
• Thomas, Dave
• Tirrell, Jordan - Enumerative Combinatorics - Multivariate Power Series
• Tuttle, Joey - 25 years walking with J
• Whitney, Arthur - kOS

Attendees

Please add your name to this list (or ask us to) if you are attending the conference and include affiliation, home town and country. Let others know they'll get to see you if they come.

• Alvord, Linda - Image Maker-Watercolor and Digital, Sarasota, FL, USA
• Baker, John - Programmer MWECC, author of JOD Addon, St. Louis Missouri, USA
• Baronet, Dan - Dyalog Ltd., Montreal, Canada
• Basum, Christoph von - SAP, Germany
• Bernecky, Bob - Snake Island Research, Toronto, Canada
• Burke, Chris - Jsoftware, Victoria, BC, Canada
• Christensen, Gitte - Dyalog Ltd., CEO, Denmark
• Costigliola, Thomas - BEST, LLC, Hoboken, NJ, USA
• Dallas, George - Arch Coal Inc. St. Louis, Missouri, USA
• Dobrogost, Michal - Vancouver, BC, Canada
• Dykman, Michael - Independent Consultant, Toronto, Canada
• Feathers, Michael - R7K Research and Conveyance, Director, Miami, FL, USA
• Foad, Jay - Dyalog Ltd, Bramley, UK
• Garland, Simon - Kx Systems, Fanas, Switzerland
• Giddens, Liz - Jsoftware, Toronto, Canada
• Goldsmith, Leslie - Affinity Systems, Toronto, Canada
• Harms, Tracy - Columbus, Ohio, USA
• Harrington, J. Patrick - Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
• Hui, Roger - Jsoftware and Dyalog Ltd., Vancouver, Canada
• Iverson, Eric - Jsoftware, Toronto, Canada
• Jasmin, Pascal - Independent Consultant, Toronto, Canada
• King, Dan - Consultant, Toronto, ON, Canada
• Kromberg, Morten - Dyalog Ltd., CTO, Denmark
• Lam, Bill - Independent Consultant, Hong Kong
• Leibs, David - Oracle Labs, Redwood Shores, CA, USA
• Lettow, Ken - Thomas Publishing Company, New York, NY, USA
• Lochbaum, Marshall - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
• Lippu, Esa - Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co., Helsinki, Finland
• Mitchell, David - Hewlett-Packard - Victor, New York, USA
• McCormick, Devon - Daedalus Strategies, New York, NY, USA
• Miller, Raul - Independent Consultant, McLean, VA, USA
• Neville, Harriett - Victor, NY, USA
• Paramonov, Andrey - NDPAR, Toronto, Canada
• Reiter, Cliff - Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA
• Rudden, Kyle - Actuary and J beginner, Trinidad & Tobago
• Seppälä, Anssi - Enease Oy, Finland
• Taylor, Lawrence - Belleville, IL, USA
• Taylor, Stephen - Software Aesthetics, British APL Association, UK
• Therriault, Robert - Independent Consultant, Parksville, BC, Canada
• Thomas, Dave - Bedarra Research Labs, Ottawa, Canada
• Tirrell, Jordan - Thomas Publishing Company, New York, NY, USA
• Toliver, Dann - Bento Miso, Toronto, Canada
• Tomczak, Przemek - Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), Toronto, Canada
• Traberman, Tama - Michael Saunders Real Estate, Sarasota, FL, USA
• Tuttle, Joey - Independent Consultant, Aptos, California, USA
• Whitney, Arthur - Kx Systems, Palo Alto, California, USA

Topics

List topics you would like to learn about or discuss. These could show up in talks or they could be handled by smaller interest groups that take advantage of break times.

- Using JHS with WebGL, Javascript, HTML5

Schedule

Talk titles are in the Speakers section.

	Thursday, July 24
9:00		continental breakfast
9:30	opening session - Jsoftware team
10:00	Chris Burke - J802 and Jqt overview
10:40	Robert Therriault
11:00	break
11:30	Morten Kromberg and Jay Foad - Dyalog for Array Language Programmers
12:30	Eric Iverson
1:00	lunch
2:00	David Leibs
3:00	Dave Thomas
3:30	break
4:00	Arthur Whitney
4:20	Anssi Seppälä
4:40	J. Patrick Harrington
5:00	Christoph von Bassum
5:20	Stephen Taylor
5:40	Simon Garland
6:00	depart for banquet - starts at 6:30

	Friday, July 25
9:00		continental breakfast
9:30	Joey Tuttle
10:00	Tracy Harms
10:30	John Baker
11:00	break
11:30	Chris Burke - kdb+ introduction
12:30	Raul Miller
12:50	Morten Kromberg - Raspberry APL Pies
1:10	lunch
2:00	Ken Lettow
2:20	Thomas Costigliola
2:40	Devon McCormick
3:00	Cliff Reiter
3:30	break
4:00	Marshall Lochbaum
4:20	Jordan Tirrell
4:40	Michael Feathers
5:00	Roger Hui
5:30	closing session - Jsoftware team
6:00	P.J. O'Brien's

Accommodations

Neither the venue nor banquet is in a hotel, so there are no special arrangements with a particular hotel. There are many hotels within easy walking distance of the Cathedral Centre. Post what you find here as a guide to others. In particular, good finds that are inexpensive, such as hostels and university residences would be helpful.

• Inexpensive accommodation is available at Victoria University Summer Residence halls, 140 Charles St. W. at the University of Toronto. Daily rates for short term stays are $64 for a single and $86 for a double ($59 and $80 for students), breakfast is included. The residences are 15 minutes by TTC from the Cathedral Centre.
• Another option is at Ryerson University Summer Accommodation. The daily rate for the International Living Learning Centre Residence is $90 for bed and breakfast. This is a 15 minute walk to conference venue. Pitman Hall is $54 for bed and breakfast with a shared bathroom, or $69 with a private bathroom.

Toronto - Things to Do and See

Near The Cathedral Centre
St. Lawrence Market, at Front and Jarvis. The South Market is open Tues. - Sat. with wonderful cheeses, baked goods, produce, meat, sea food and treats galore. The Saturday farmer's market is on the north side and has a great array of local produce.
The Wine Bar, 65 Church Street. Monique, the manager, has offered a 10% discount on food (not drinks) if you say the magic words "J conference".
Starfish Oyster Bed and Grill, 100 Adelaide Street E. Terrific sea food!

The Beaches (also known as The Beach)
You can stroll along the boardwalk, sit in the shady parks or explore the shops and restaurants of Queen Street East.
Getting there: Streetcar - 501 East from downtown Toronto to Woodbine Avenue. Subway - Bloor-Danforth line East to Woodbine Subway then take the Woodbine bus Route 92 south down Woodbine to Queen Street.

High Park
Toronto’s largest park. There are formal gardens and woodland trails and The Grenadier Cafe has light meals and ice cream. The intrepid traveller can follow a trail along Grenadier Pond, south across Lakeshore Blvd. under the Gardiner Expressway and come to the lake with the Martin Goodman trail and board walk. If you follow this west you will find butterfly gardens and the Humber River. East will take you towards downtown Toronto.
Getting there: Subway - west along Bloor Danforth line to the High Park Subway then walk south. Streetcar - 506 Carlton/College west to the High park loop at Parkside Drive

Harbourfront
There are waterfront bars and restaurants, shops, a variety of programs at The Power Plant Gallery and York Quay Centre as well as ongoing outdoor shows and events. It’s a lovely way to spend an afternoon or evening. Harbourfront
Getting there: From Union Station - (look for Harbourfront signs) and take the 509 Exhibition or 510 Spadina streetcar, get off at the third stop, directly in front of Harbourfront Centre. From Spadina Station take the 510 streetcar south.

Kensington Market
Just west of downtown and pulsating with energy, Kensington Market has lots of open air stalls, places to eat and drink and stores selling everything from vintage clothing to bicycles. Baldwin Street is also worth a visit, it is packed with restaurants and cafes and runs east from Spadina and south of College
Getting there: From the Bloor subway get off at Bathurst or Spadina and take the streetcar south to College. The market area is between Dundas and College and Bathurst and Spadina.

Ossington and Dundas West
This is where the hippest of the hip come to eat. Try to get a table at The Black Hoof on Dundas West or Foxleys or Pizzeria Libretto on Ossington. You can dance to rockabilly bands at the Dakota Tavern or sit and watch and listen to music at The Painted Lady or The Communist’s Daughter.
Getting there: Subway - get off at Ossington on the Bloor subway and take the 63 bus south to College or Dundas west.

Toronto Islands
A 10 minute ferry ride from the foot of Yonge Street gives you a fabulous panorama of the city and miles of parkland with beaches, and boat, canoe and bicycle rentals. It is a wonderful place to take a picnic or enjoy a meal at The Rectory Cafe on Wards Island.
Getting there: Ferries leave evey 10 minutes from the Ferry Docks. The 509 or 510 streetcar south from Union subway station takes you to the Ferry Docks in a few minutes.

Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)

Getting there: subway - get off at St. Patrick station on the University line and walk west along Dundas to 317 Dundas St. W Streetcar - take the 505 Dundas streetcar from the East and get off at McCaul Street.

Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)
You can explore themed galleries with over 6 million objects in the museum’s collection spanning world cultures and natural history.
Getting there: subway - Museum stop on the Yonge/University Line.

The Gardiner Museum
An amazing display of ceramic from the Ancient Americas through to Asian and European collections.
Getting there: subway - get off at Museum on the Yonge /University line

Philosopher’s Walk Take a break from the the noise and hubbub of downtown Toronto. The entrance is on the southwest corner of Bloor Street West and Avenue Road, just west of the ROM. It is a tranquil walk running south through the Univeristy of Toronto campus.

Interesting Destinations near Toronto

Niagara Falls
In case it is on your bucket list, here is a link: Niagara Falls

Stratford
This is a lovely Victorian town filled with culture and scenic parkland complete with swans along the River Avon (no you are not in England). It is famous for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, North America's largest repertory theatre. It is an easy 2 hour drive or train ride from Toronto and there are many fine restaurants and B&Bs. The festival web site has links to accommodations, dining and travel.

Niagara on the Lake
This is another festival town on the shores of Lake Ontario. There are four theatres at the Shaw Festival which celebrates the work of George Bernard Shaw and playwrights anywhere in the world writing during, or about, the era of Shaw's lifetime. It is situated near some of Ontario's best vineyards and there are many fine wineries to visit, restaurants and beautiful B&Bs and hotels. We can highly recommend The Stone Road Grille, you will need reservations.

Elora
About 1.5 hours from Toronto is the village of Elora. The limestone houses were built along the Elora gorge in the 1800s and today have been converted into galleries, antiques stores and artists studios. If you would like something a little more exciting there is a spectacular walk along the Elora Gorge or you could try tubing or canoeing the Grand River.

Prince Edward County
Prince Edward County is two hours east of Toronto on the shores of Lake Ontario. There are lovely beaches and a boardwalk trail at Sand Banks Provincial Park as well as wineries, restaurants and charming historic towns. We can also recommend The County Cider Company. There is an outdoor wood burning pizza oven and a lovely view that is perfect accompanied by a Waupoos Cider.

Algonquin Provicial Park
If you have the time and would like to camp, hike, bike, backpack or canoe then you should try to visit Algonquin Park. This link has all the information you will need, from making camp site reservations to renting equipment.

FAQ

• Projector Details: 3500 ANSI Lumen and are WXGA or 1366x768 resolution. Input to the projectors is by VGA only.
• Screen Details: Front projected 16:9 format screen
• wifi is available at the conference
• Bus 192 runs from the Toronto Pearson International Airport to the Kipling subway station, from which you can take the subway downtown. It runs frequently; it is fast; and it is reliable. Cost: $3.
• Public Transportation is managed by the TTC on a system of subways, buses and streetcars. Fares are $3.00 cash or 3 tokens/$7.80. Buses and streetcars require exact cash fare or a token. A weekly unlimited ride pass is $37.50 and a weekend pass is $10.50. This is good for 2 adults and there is unlimited travel on a Saturday or Sunday.