-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 "Mark D. Niemiec" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Sum and Product are probably the two most frequently used phrases of > the form v/ and, as such, possibly worthy of their own special > primitives or symbols. Mark, I'd like to respectfully disagree, even despite your longer list of examples. While I know a language has got to live, I think J was conceived out of a great, unifying concept that is very powerful. Hiding things such as +/ makes what + and / do less transparent, thus making it harder for people to see how each of those could be used in other combinations. Besides, I suspect J doesn't really need such language changes. From observing J since J7, I think it was (hmm: is J a cyclic group?), I have some ideas of what might benefit J more: Getting more people familiar with the language. I suggest one approach might be to begin to use J as a notation for thinking. I first encountered APL as a digital system design language, and most of my APL usage was simply with paper and pencil. Do any of us have blogs? Do any of us write papers? Do any of us write reports? What if we began using J as the way to express algorithms in those places? I'm not suggesting the use of 80-character-long tacit functions; I'm suggesting mostly simpler or more decomposed (but, yes, still mostly tacit) functions that make the algorithms clearer. I've seen that in APL; I don't recall that in J. Getting more people capable of using J as a tool. J makes a great calculator, but it can be intimidating. Figuring out more ways (JfC and LC are some of the great starts we have) to help newcomers get started and not get stuck could help. Help augment the J system. Listening these days, it seems as if speed is an issue for some. J Software seems to have done a great job at optimizing many functions; keeping up with developments in hardware may make things very interesting. I still get frustrated when I encounter old scripts that use x. and y.; I really like keeping the language largely stable and focusing on ways to make the commonly defined concepts more widely used and more effective for people's needs rather than changing the language. Thoughts? Bill - -- Bill Harris http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/ Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (MingW32) Comment: For more information, see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQFFy9s03J3HaQTDvd8RAi9cAJ9VWWO8W8IDhd/yuGIdCJ/oUa2AogCcCxbv 7W3VIU46jPSJV58NCeYPbKI= =Wpd7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
