One problem for J is that it is almost too good to be free. People expect to have to pay for this kind of stuff.
There is a story about a guy who wanted to get rid of his old fridge. He put the fridge outside with a note on it, "Please take this fridge, full working order but no longer needed." Nobody took it for about a week. He put a sign on it, "For sale: $50" ... and somebody had stolen it by the end of the day. Not sure whether it is a true story :-) 2009/5/27 Björn Helgason <[email protected]>: > There are several indications that J is growing. > > The number of all kinds of texts about J in books and web pages seem to be > growing a lot. > > The messages in the Forums seem to be growing. > > There is a major difference in the possibility to grow J compared to earlier > APL and most current APLs as well. > > J is free and you can also distribute J for free. > > Most APLs you need to pay for your own copy and you also need to pay if you > create an application and want to give it to others. > > At least it used to be that way and I know of major applications that failed > because the APL vendor wanted too much money for the runtime APL to go > together with the application. > > We have no idea of how many J applications there are because they are so > easy to distribute. > > Another obstacle for APL was/is the need for special font and j does not > have that obstacle at all. > > There are people saying that APL is stil growing and it certainly is alive > and well after all these years but I am pretty sure that J is growing > faster. > > 2009/5/27 Ian Clark <[email protected]> > >> Morten, >> >> Sorry if I alarmed you with my defection from the APL camp. It's quite >> understandable that you'll want to put the record straight as regards >> Dyalog APL, so let me support you in doing just that. >> >> Joey challenged me (or so I thought) to articulate my reasons for >> choosing J for my next project, indeed all foreseeable ones. My >> reasons are personal and idiosyncratic. Mostly it's down to the fact >> that I operate in a different arena than I did in 1994-2003. Then it >> was corporate/financial. Now it is hobbyist/voluntary sector. In case >> anyone is inclined to take my rant as contributing something of >> general significance to the question of whether to use J or (Dyalog) >> APL if you have the rare luxury of starting out afresh, then hold >> on... what I had to say won't bear that weight. >> >> A lot has happened in 10 years, and much of my problems with carrying >> on developing in APL hinges on how badly placed I am to catch up, at >> least (/especially) in the Windows area. It would be wrong to blame >> APL, let alone Dyalog APL, for the failures of Windows. >> >> IMO, Windows-proper has become byzantine, rickety, worm-ridden, >> covered with Band-Aids and no longer fit-for-purpose. But what *is* >> the purpose? One that's not mine any more. Once I'm rid of my present >> commitment to support a product written in APL+Win 4.0 (note the >> back-level!), maintained on Win2000 and run on XP by my >> voluntary-sector clients, I shall walk away from Windows -- and good >> riddance to it. With no corporate requirements to grovel to, I don't >> have to bother with Windows ever again. >> >> Unfortunately walking away from Windows is likely to take APL with it, >> for me -- and it's APL+Win, not Dyalog, I've been using since 2001 >> (not for personal preference, I might add). No, I don't want to go >> running kangaroo operating systems on my Mac -- I've made that mistake >> before -- and I don't expect my clients will want to either. A >> "disturbing lack of faith" -- but in the Mac, I'd think you'd say. At >> least in its capacity to operate outside its proper domain. >> >> Both J and Mathematica have impressed me with the smoothness with >> which user-written apps port between Mac and Windows -- the most >> impressive part being the GUI. Why can they do that and not Dyalog >> APL? Probably all down to the value they place on the Mac market. Plus >> whether it was developed on the Mac in the first place (as so many >> leading systems were, even Microsoft ones: Word, Excel...). As a >> onetime Mac developer, I have a minority view on that. But you'll see >> from my rant it weighs heavily for me -- and it weighs in J's favour, >> outweighing all considerations of pure language design. The >> availability of a native Mac version of Dyalog APL would make it a lot >> harder for me to walk away from all my old APL expertise. >> >> But to you that's nothing but a business case -- which I can't make. >> >> You'll know the source of my war-stories about product-development in >> Dyalog APL better than anyone. And now you own it, you're in an >> unrivalled position to do something about it. Especially the problems >> I've been vomiting bile over. I'm sure you've used the intervening 10 >> years well -- I know you have, because I've been reading the new >> release announcements in Vector and I've nodded to myself and >> approved. My war stories which show APL in a bad light against J need >> to be qualified by one vital point: >> >> +++ J is a single-vendor system with scarcely 10 years of heritage >> code, by my reckoning. Whereas APL still has 5 (is it?) independent >> vendors of language processors, counting just the significant ones, >> plus a heritage of code crown-jewels going back to the 60's if not the >> 50's, having hopped platforms maybe 2 or 3 times in their history. >> >> Now I have heritage code to port -- and how! I was a product >> developer, not an application programmer. My code has had to work on >> different platforms, sometimes with APLs from different vendors. I >> didn't only have myself to please. Many of the problems I encountered >> would never have arisen had I been coding on one single platform all >> my life, maybe only ever to run on one single machine. I wished I >> could have shut my eyes to the existence of any other APL but Dyalog, >> and never wrestled with things no Christian soul should ever have to >> know about, like []ML, not to mention []NA, []WC, []WD, []WG, []WI, >> []WGIVE, []WCALL (I'm mixing in APL+Win here)... >> >> Is it any wonder then, I yearn for a retirement bumbling around with >> Macs, iPAQs and wall-to-wall ASCII? Where there isn't a ws to give WS >> FULL, whether or not B[...]<-1 can cause it any more? Where Unicode is >> a harmless toy, not a cut'n'paste matter of life and death when >> porting heritage code? >> >> Ian >> >> >> On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 11:04 AM, Morten Kromberg <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > Hi Ian! >> > >> > Your subject line caught my eye... ;-) And since you're posting old news >> > about Dyalog APL to the J Chat forum, I feel it is my duty to respond >> with >> > an update (not that I want to argue with your choice of J if it feels >> > comfortable for what you are doing): >> > >> >> J's portability between Windows, Mac and PDA alone sees to that for me. >> > >> > OK, we don't have a "native" Mac version, but Dyalog APL does run on a >> Mac >> > in a variety of different ways (Under Wine and various Virtual Machine >> > frameworks). The same GUI is available on most platforms, so I think that >> > your ability to produce good looking and portable user interfaces using >> this >> > route should be no worse than using J - and could be significantly better >> > depending on what you are trying to do. >> > >> >> Code written by people who didn't appreciate []ML<-3 >> > >> > OK, this DOES seem like an odd reason to switch to J ;-) (for those who >> do >> > now know, []ML<-3 puts Dyalog APL in "APL2 Compatibility Mode"). >> > >> >> []AV's are devastatingly different >> > >> > True, but now that APL has "gone Unicode", []AV is just an obsolete >> > 256-element character vector which is there in order to allow old code >> which >> > references it directly to continue working. Dyalog APL now probably has >> the >> > most complete (and "integrated") Unicode implementation of any array >> > language. Unlike in J (last time I looked), a Finn can just type: >> > >> > 'ä'='Säppäla' >> > 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 >> > >> >> Code that needs frequent execution of B[a;b;c;d;e...]<-1 (uses lots of >> > memory ... etc) >> > >> > These problems are now pretty much solved in Dyalog APL (SQUAD indexing >> has >> > been added to avoid the need for execute, and indexing has been rewritten >> to >> > be memory-efficient). >> > >> >> Also I don't have a spare couple of grand to keep up with the latest >> >> releases of Dyalog APL and APL+Win -- but that's not the key issue >> >> because I could always find a customer to buy me the products I need. >> > >> > A "non-commercial" Dyalog APL will set you back £50, and if you are only >> > doing a small amount of infrequent commercial work, you can pick the 2% >> > royalty agreement so that you have no up-front costs. >> > >> >> No, the key issue for me is that I've written J code in Windows, >> >> including GUI code, transferred the files to the Mac, also to my HP >> >> iPAQ, an easy matter because they're ASCII txt files and it's just a >> >> case of moving the dongle... and the app works First Time. >> > >> > Using text files to store APL code is becoming a common technique with >> > Dyalog APL too (and the system takes care of updating the script files >> when >> > you edit code while debugging - so you can do development both by editing >> > the scripts and using the system interactively). >> > >> >> I could go on and on... This was back in the last century, and things >> may >> > have gotten better with APL since... but I doubt it's that better. >> > >> > This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: >> > >> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgGc9kruiLQ >> > >> > Well, I don't think it was *that* bad to begin with, but I am happy that >> > some of your most important complaints seem to have been resolved. We've >> > certainly been busy! >> > >> >> J is going to be my tool of choice. >> > >> > I'm not trying to argue with that, just needed to set the record straight >> > (as I see it ;-) regarding some of the things you state are "wrong" with >> > APL. >> > >> >> BTW who's seen >> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_APL_programming_language >> > >> > I'd better take a look at that ... :-) >> > >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> > > > > -- > Björn Helgason, Verkfræðingur > Fugl&Fiskur ehf, > Þerneyjarsundi 23, Hraunborgum > Po Box 127,801 Selfoss , > t-póst: [email protected] > gsm: +3546985532 > Landslags og skrúðgarðagerð, gröfuþjónusta > http://groups.google.com/group/J-Programming > > > Tæknikunnátta höndlar hið flókna, sköpunargáfa er meistari einfaldleikans > > góður kennari getur stigið á tær án þess að glansinn fari af skónum > /|_ .-----------------------------------. > ,' .\ / | Með léttri lund verður | > ,--' _,' | Dagurinn í dag | > / / | Enn betri en gærdagurinn | > ( -. | `-----------------------------------' > | ) | (\_ _/) > (`-. '--.) (='.'=) ♖♘♗♕♔♙ > `. )----' (")_(") ☃☠ > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
