🚀 go-pugleaf

George Otto asked what canonical WS representations people use to allow
us to exchange APL workspaces over this net or by tape.

SIGAPL (the ACM special interest group on APL) has a "Workspace
Interchange Convention" (WSIS, so abbreviated because "Convention" was
originally "Standard") for this purpose.  It defines a bit-stream
representation of a workspace, which can then be communicated over any
convenient medium.  For instance, bits might be grouped into bytes and
stored on 9-track tape, or grouped seven bits at a time into ASCII
characters and transmitted over a network.

The specification of WSIS was given in an issue of APL Quote Quad a
year or two ago (actually, it was covered in more than one issue).  It
is a "layered" specification, like the ISO reference model for open
systems interconnection.

                              Rohan Jayasekera, University of Waterloo
                              watmath!rsjayasekera