I have to back-pedal somewhat on my original statement - I was emphasizing that the overwhelming majority of my own difficulties are due to "installed base" issues.
J still needs a fair amount of work to be easy for newbies but appears to be heading in the right direction with no major obstacles in the way by reason of its availability in the browser (which hides installation difficulties from the end-user), and its package installation facilities (though re-instating the J6 GUI for this would be very helpful). We should all be very grateful to squeaky wheels like Professor Eisenberg for prodding us out of complacency. I just remembered another reason, having to do with the package installation and update, that I'm optimistic about the new version - the older, GUI version ran afoul of mysterious proxy issues when I was at work but the newer one works fine in that respect. -- Devon McCormick, CFA ^me^ at acm. org is my preferred e-mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
