Thanks Jim for pointing out NuVoc. It really is well done, and as I have
been (and am still) learning J it's usually my first choice for grasping a
new concept or when I need a quick refresher.
The more "reference style" stuff in jsoftward.com/help is also invaluable
(as I type this I realize I had a tab open to
https://www.jsoftware.com/help/phrases/locate_select.htm from last week).
I'll also echo what Raul said, you can learn at your own pace and just
because you're a beginner doesn't mean that the problems you're solving
with J or the software you write with it isn't also valuable.
There are surely many more people who are not experts in J than there are
experts. I'm certainly not an expert but I feel like it's a good tool and
I often use it just as a desktop calculator or as a replacement for
Perl/Ruby/Python for throwaway Linux scripting jobs. J is powerful and
elegant, but it's not like a classic sports car that has to be carefully
kept under wraps most of the time, and only brought out on special
occasions for showing off.
In the spirit of showing off non-expert-level J work, here is one of mine.
It's not as elegant as I would like it to be, but it did the job I wanted
it to do at the time:
NB. put J on $PATH, then call this script as:
NB. j ssh-config-table.ijs
NB. it reads ~/.ssh/config and displays it in table form, even if some of
the Host entries don't have all the same fields
NB. or if they are in different order than each other.
NB. note that it DOES NOT work if you use the ssh_config file rules of
wildcard or multiple hosts per ruleset, rather each
NB. host must use its own set of rules. Maybe someday someday it will
parse the ssh_config file correctly
NB. but for now it "works on my machine"
row =: cut&> ''"_^:('#'={.)each (cutLF;.1~'Host 'E.])fread'~/.ssh/config'
key =: a:-.~~.,{."1 row
val =: {:"1 row
idx =: {."1 key i.row
echo key,/:~3 :'(y{val) (y{idx) } a:#~1+#key'"0 i.#val
exit'' NB. comment out this line do debug
The J community benefits from hearing from folks at all points in the
spectrum between beginner and master, so thank you for saying hi.
Regards,
Alex
On Thu, Aug 8, 2019 at 11:21 AM Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 7, 2019 at 7:31 PM 'Jim Russell' via General
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Pity there are so few of you bright enough to become proficient, and so
> many of us that feel we shouldn’t use it unless we use it well. Sigh...
>
> I think it's mostly a matter of pacing.
>
> Kids pick up J at the community college level without any unusual
> stress or anything (and quite a bit of it can fit in at the grade
> school level, assuming enough comfort with concepts like "numbers" and
> "letters"). But, not all in one day.
>
> Anyways, ... people shy away from the oddest things, sometimes. (And,
> I guess, there will always have been people who did the discouraging
> "you don't know *that*? hahahah" thing...)
>
> But having small projects to use it in can also help. Frivolous
> projects are great for this kind of thing.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> Raul
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
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