Don, You could knock up a program to convert S into some form of executable J without first convincing others of its utility. What is the problem with doing that? Along the way you might run into some problems writing the program which I am sure people would be glad to help with if asked specific J programming questions. That is different from asking people to agree that S is better than J before S exists for contrast and comparison.
You could then distribute the interpreter on the programming mailing list, or a wiki page, or by other means. You would then be able to promote your S interpreter, which would actually exist in real life. For example, when someone posts something on the programming forum, you could reply "well, using S it is much easier... <example>". Or you could write a paper comparing how much easier it is the do stuff in the actual S interpreter that exists than in J and people can take it or leave it. For now S is purely academic, J is practical. J exists and people are using it. My point is, don't give up. Just do it. Just write the S interpreter. All the best, Matthew. On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Don Watson <[email protected]> wrote: > Blank From the nature of the discussion in this forum, it is clear that > this is a community that is academic in nature. J is providing an excellent > service to its needs. There is nothing wrong with the J community making a > decision that it should remain academic. > > Towards an alternative furure path: > > 1) I perceive an opportunity for J to help the rest of the community, > particularly school teachers presenting Mathematics. > 2) As an elder of the community, I have a responsibility to look towards > the future for our children and youth. > 3) I have made my case for making J more approachable and there is no > point in repeating myself. > 4) The first step in that process is the implementation of a facility > that is simple to use and also fits the requirements for tacit j: "In a > tacit definition the arguments are not named and do not appear explicitly in > the definition. The arguments are referred to implicitly by the syntactic > requirements of the definition." > 5) This could have a different name. The more basic users could follow > this route and the academic users could follow the tacit J path. > > I am obviously hoping that the J community will agree to let the use and > purpose of J expand in this way. Obviously if I can't convince, I move on > and try somewhere else. But I have no wish to destroy what exists. > > Don > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
