> I have just received Vector 24/1. They announce the book "At Play with
> J", but immediately say that there will be a second revised edition "in
> which the examples match the current version of J".
> Would you start using any program in that conditions?

Quite right... it embarrasses me too.

But unlike Vista, there *is* a market for historical reprints.
Especially in the APL world. The original brief was to issue a
collection of reprints of Gene's landmark papers. We've delivered on
that -- and you can buy the book. (And people have.)

But then it was pointed out that here we have an all-too-rare
collection of original mathematical research which actually shows the
thought-processes towards getting there... and with free software
available to run the examples. Let me stress that what's on the stocks
is not a book for people who want to learn J but a book for people who
don't want to learn J. (At least not at the outset.)

But then, of course, the examples must work. With J straight out the
box. All of them... not the 96% of Edn 1 (with deprecated features
enabled.)

All I can say right now is... watch this space.

(BTW: Nobody's calling yet for a version of Ken's "A Programming
Language" which runs faultlessly under Dyalog 12.0... but wouldn't it
be nice if all vendors could issue releases for people who don't want
to run Vista!)

Ian Clark
Subeditor, At Play With J, Edn 2.
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