Blake, Welcome to the list. My opinion was similar to yours when I started using J about 9 months ago. I will post a short reply as the full reply is more philosophical and probably belongs on the [email protected] forum ( jsoftware.com/forums.htm)
I think of J as having several components of the the package or language. The core library, the IDEs, proprietary extensions, and the package library. The open source question needs to be contemplated at each of the components. As far as I know, the latest version j8 is using a j7 core. The j7 core is what is provided in the gpl source. I don't know if it's the exact same core or if there has been changes between the gpl source and what is being distributed today. I would assume there are few, if any deviations between the binary library that is distributed in current versions and the gpl source version. Buliding the gpl source is not exactly trivial on all platforms. I've built it on windows using both mingw and visual c++ and on linux using gcc. It's not that difficult on windows, but it's not a single command. I intend to publish my findings on using mingw at some point because it's useful to play with J source on windows and not require a 2 gig install of Visual C++. It's also nice to build with other free (as in speech) software. The IDEs have a limited source release, although the latest j8 qt version is provided: http://www.jsoftware.com/download/jqt/. I have not tried to compile it. There may or may not be proprietary extensions. The package library seems to be largely open source and is maintained on the web svn. My personal opinion is that J Software is a business and deserves to find ways of being compensated for their work. Proprietary extensions and even custom IDEs are well within the bounds in my opinion. I think it's incredible that the gpl source is available. There is a large leap in terms of effort and skill from providing the source to running an open source project. As a business, J Software needs to weigh where to make investments and devoting resources to running J as an open source project/community may not yield the best return. So, I agree with Raul that it's up to the community. The community faces the same challenge in terms of time and skill. I think many of us are demotivated because J is so mature and has so few bugs that it may not have a significant impact to be a source maintainer. A language this mature has tough choices to make on whether to include or exclude a feature. Part of J's beauty comes from its simplicity and saying no. I remember early on that I was disappointed that J didn't have dictionaries or hash tables. I figured that I might add it to my version of the code. I'm glad that I didn't. I researched some options and was ready to implement. I stopped as I read and got more familiar with J. I've since learned that the J way has made some deliberate choices that often better than my ad hoc, project based needs. Most solutions do not require a hash table. I haven't actually needed it yet. There has been one main source contribution since I've been following the list, the functional extensions. These extensions are probably 10 years ahead of my skill level in J. I haven't seen any real mentions of bugs - most of it's been interpretation. Are there warts? Sure, but every language has them and they may not be bugs. Anyhow, I said this was going to be short and is clearly not. My objective was to let you know that, like you, J's source availability was a big factor in deciding to invest my life into it. Other than tinkering around in the source to better learn, I haven't needed to extend it. I don't think many others have either, otherwise we probably would have made more of an effort to build a process for maintaining it. Regards, Joe On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 2:02 AM, Blake McBride <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Raul, > > I understand what you are saying, but I don't think that was my question. > > While I am technically capable of maintaining J, there are many, many > things I am also capable of maintaining (like the Linux kernel, GCC, my > video drivers, etc.). Given the practical limitations of time, I was > hoping to leverage off of the wonderful and deeply appreciated up-to-date, > ongoing work done by the JSoftware team while others could leverage off of > the work I have done (i.e. https://github.com/blakemcbride/Dynace ). > Certainly, the JSofwrae team is under utterly no obligation, moral or > otherwise, to share their work. I was simply asking the question. > > Given time limitations, although I am sure it would be great fun, I am > highly unlikely to ever "maintain" J. On the flip side, it is highly > likely that I would contribute build or porting fixes, and document and > report bugs. Given the fact that full source is available to many fine > languages, I am reluctant to devote significant time to a single source > (from one vendor) proprietary language - just a personal sentiment. > > With respect and appreciation, > > Blake McBride > > P.S. In order to build J701b on current 64 bit Linux machines, I had to > change bin/jconfig > From: SOLINK=" -shared -W1,soname,libj.so -lm -ldl -o " > To: SOLINK=" -shared -Wl,-soname=libj.so -lm -ldl -o " > (Haven't checked yet but I sense that jconfig is generated and I need to > propagate that change elsewhere. > > Also, after building on this 64 bit machine, the majority of the tests pass > but several failed. I won't bother to report this since the code is so old > anyway. > > > > > > On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 12:20 AM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > The official release has not been changed since 2011. > > > > I think we (the J community) need to step up and take start addressing > > the bug list: > > http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/System/Requests%20%26%20Bug%20Reports > > > > That's a direct consequence of it being open source now. It's up to us. > > > > (Personally, I've got a machine that I intend to use for J source > > debugging and development, but I can't get it on the internet right > > now. I think I'll need to arrange for the aging and overloaded router > > that's immediately upstream of me to be replaced before I can get much > > of anywhere.) > > > > Thanks > > > > -- > > Raul > > > > On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 1:05 AM, Blake McBride <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Greetings, > > > > > > I was under the impression that J source code (to the engine) was > > > available. I understand there is an old snapshot of 701b, but I have > > been > > > keeping up-to-date with your SVN repository thinking I was keeping up > > with > > > the source. Wanting to build it now, I realized it isn't there. > > > > > > Having source code is an important factor to me. Is it available > > > somewhere, or are there plans for additional source code releases? > > > > > > Thanks. > > > > > > Blake McBride > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
