I have been following J for over two decades now since Ken gave me a discette in Copenhagen in APL90.
I have seen the interest in J increasing as well as the functionality increasing as well as the quality. Over the years more and more examples/helps/labs/demos have been produced. I have participated in Forums and groups talking about J and it is obvious that the number of users and general interest is growing. It may not have grown as fast nor as much as many of us have wanted. I have often wondered why it is that only a small portion of those registered are participating in the discussions and I have not figured out what can be done to hear from the majority. My guess is that it is less than 1% who at all send in some contribution. It is hard to judge what is the best message. Is it a message that gets a lot of discussions going? If you write some text that is so good that everyone is happy with and is very helpful do you get any feedback? In a way I think we are at something of important crossroads now. We have major new GUIs and we have the excellent old GUI. How many are using JHS and how many use GTK is difficult to see or know. How many prefer the Console and run J as part of an application. How many use the old J6 and have not gone over to any of J7 yet. How many and why are important questions but are we getting any answers and how can we know? Is it success if we get 1000 new users who are very happy and they do not say anything? Is it success if they join and do not leave? How do we know? -- Björn Helgason, Verkfræðingur Fornustekkum II 781 Hornafirði, t-póst: [email protected] gsm: +3546985532 twitter: @flugfiskur 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
