I just came across an article by James Somers in the magazine the Atlantic entitled "How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code".
The gist of the article discusses the author's process of learning how to code and how he utilized project Euler as a resource for learning new languages. On page 3 of the article there is the following passage: ==quote Project Euler is engaging in part because it's set up like a video game, with 340 fun, very carefully ordered problems. Each has its own page, like this one that asks you to discover the three most popular squares in a game of Monopoly played with 4-sided (instead of 6-sided) dice. At the bottom of the puzzle description is a box where you can enter your answer, usually just a whole number. The only "rule" is that the program you use to solve the problem should take no more than one minute of computer time to run. On top of this there is one brilliant feature: once you get the right answer you're given access to a forum where successful solvers share their approaches. It's the ideal time to pick up new ideas -- after you've wrapped your head around a problem enough to solve it. This is also why a lot of experienced programmers use Project Euler to learn a new language. Each problem's forum is a kind of Rosetta stone. For a single simple problem you might find annotated solutions in Python, C, Assembler, BASIC, Ruby, Java, J and FORTRAN. ==endquote Wonderful! He mentioned J! Though, looking at the list of languages he compared J with immediately brought to mind this old childhood favorite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueZ6tvqhk8U&t=20. Well, any press is good press, and it is nice to see J get a mention in a mainstream publication. For anyone interested the link to the full article is: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/how-i-failed-faile d-and-finally-succeeded-at-learning-how-to-code/239855/3/ Ken ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
