Hello, I have seen comments from Henry Rich that compares J6 with previous version (e.g: "before J5 you could get around the problem"). I have read Roger Hui's quote about how hook and fork existed before explicit defintions [1]. That made me search for 'release notes' or better still 'evolution of J' articles. I could not find those.
I have read that human language research is notriously difficult since 'language leaves no fossils'. Older forms are just overridden by newer forms and the language just moves ahead. Given that we still have many of the original contributors of the language, I think it would be good to document the evolution of J across the releases. What came in and what went out. And not just at the operator level but also at the usage levels. Sprinkled with some why's on the decisions. I hope that with these historical notes in place, we can get a closer glimpse of the genius behind the language J. And they could serve as guiding lights for other language developers. If this already exists, do point me to the appropriate reference. Ideally that would be a living document, changing as J evolves... Regards, Yuva [1] http://elliscave.com/APL_J/rogerhui.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
