Don,
> When I encountered train syntax, my first reaction was that it was the > most arbitrary, academically-inspired nonsense I had ever seen.. . ." > > I note that initially you liked J enough to be overcome by > a sense of awe - but thought train syntax to be nonsense. So what > was it that first attracted you to J in those early days? There is no easy answer to this but I'll try: Using it's array capabilities and math-like operators had already impressed me a lot in it's own right and I knew I had something powerful on my hands. Every feature of the language that I decoded opened new possibilities and certainly, the tacit concept is pushed a lot in the phrases and the learning materials. It seemed unlikely to me that the aspects of the language I knew could be so brilliantly elegant while this core concept would prove to be as ridiculous as I perceived it. Clearly, I lacked understanding so I pressed on. > > You said: > > ".I have been dabbling with the language for about 2 years now. > . . it became apparent to me that nearly all of my logical constructs > developed an inherent elegance to them in this form which was not > obvious to me at all as I formulated the idea. " > > Your experience seems very much in common with several other > people who have contributed to this chat forum - hard work over > a long period that was finally rewarded with a vision of what tacit J is. J can be appreciated at many different levels and I think it appropriate for users to take what they want from it. My son uses it to pair up competitors in his fantasy battle games and a bit of light calculation. He uses a couple of tacit phrases I wrote for him and he plays around with them a little bit. While his grasp of J is quite limited, he is still getting far more from it than 2 years of High School Pascal ever gave. I am generally pretty good at picking up languages and have several anecdotes re: learning a new language on Friday to deliver the product on Monday. I am considered senior/expert/guru status in a variety of languages but J is most certainly not one of them. After more than 2 years of quite regular use, I am more keenly aware of the vistas of J that I have not grasped than I am of my modest accomplishments. J, specifically tacit J is a triumph of concise notation; a high-level language which actually operates on a high level. I can not begin to tell you how deeply this discovery has shaken my concept of the whole software plane. -- - michael dykman - [email protected] - All models are wrong. Some models are useful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
