On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 8:20 AM, Hamish Harvey <[email protected]> wrote: > In languages where arbitrary complexities are not taxed, complexity > tends to grow over time. In J, one is encouraged to make changes in a > more considered way. This can seem costly (in time). For software that > will be around for a while, one can write that off against savings on > whole life costs. More importantly though, the resulting calculation > will be more robust, dependable and understandable.
Ironically, I used to deal with legal and related texts in APL (searching and reporting, mostly). [For those that did not know, APL is J's predecessor.] Times have changed, and what was the bread and butter of our business back then is now available for free (from library of congress), but a variety of the more useful features we had back then are not available yet from any free service that I am aware of. (For example, it can be difficult to go to thomas or google and say "show me the new documents which have shown up since the last time I performed this search" or "show me the changed documents which have shown up..." though that latter has always been rather subjective in scope.) Anyways... I think its fair to say that with proper engineering, even arbitrary and complex systems can be built and maintained and I imagine J would still have some significant advantages in such contexts. -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
