My guess would be that there are so many languages to choose from (thousands) and the benefits of J are not really obvious when a person is faced with selecting a language they do not know.
There's a lot of hype out there, about how things are awesome, incredible, and amazing. All of which tends to obscure the really interesting stuff. Then again, everyone has the right to choose what it is that interests them. Thanks, -- Raul On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 8:54 PM, Devon McCormick <[email protected]> wrote: > Good question - one I've pondered for over 40 years. My guess is that it's > just too different and most people are unwilling to abandon hard-won > knowledge they have about other programming languages to become a novice > again. > > On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 8:05 PM, Vijay Lulla <[email protected]> wrote: > >> http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/courses/670Fall04/GreatWorksInPL.shtml >> >> Before I stumbled upon J (sometime early or late 2011) I wasn't even aware >> of array languages. I'd tried a lot of different different languages >> (Haskell, Ocaml, HaXe, numpy/scipy, and R) out of my own interest but I >> never came across an array language (even though numpy is an array language >> borrowing heavily from APL/J...I wasn't ware of it)!! I used to read Phil >> Wadler, Benjamin Pierce, Simon Peyton Jones, Hal Daume III and thought that >> these guys were ahead of the curve....Until I learned about J (and >> eventually APL/J/K/Q). Now I think that APLers/Jers are ahead of >> everyone...even functional programmers!!! My question is: I'm very lucky >> to have stumbled upon J/APL but how is it not more widely known? APL/Jers >> have idioms for programming scenarios, and is second nature to them, which >> is unknown to most other programmers?!? Some examples, inverse (&.), key >> (/.), grade up/down(/: and \:), and insert (/). Am I missing something >> obvious? >> >> I'm not being rhetorical here but how would I have learned of array >> languages if I hadn't had mental machinery (makeup?) to set aside my >> biases/prejudices and give a new idea a decent chance (apparently this is >> hard in itself!!! who knew??)?? >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> > > > > -- > Devon McCormick, CFA > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
