I think the efforts to make J more accessible to beginners are excellent. Adding simple programs is also a great idea. One challenge is that people are approaching J from many different backgrounds. Some are interested in exploring mathematical problems; others like me want to use J's array processing efficiency to replace existing programs - and getting other people to understand its value.
Kyle Rudden -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raul Miller Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2014 12:09 PM To: Programming forum Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] J Kernel Note that the https://wiki.python.org/moin/SimplePrograms examples do not actually work. It's not that they are incorrect - it's that they assume various things about the environment which a beginner has to overcome before they can run them. (You need to install python, you need to know how to get python to run the commands - for a true beginner, that might not be obvious. Of course, some people probably get exposed to this kind of knowledge before they start school and others may reach adulthood without ever learning this kind of thing. It's a bit random.) But here's another thing: J is not consistent enough right now to do this justice. We have the same issue that python has for true beginners - you have to install J and figure out how to get J to accept the "program". But, here's from J602: echo |value error: echo J802 does echo right - it's defined consistently in jqt and jhs - we're getting better. But J802 is missing features from J602. (Of course, python has an analogous set of issues, between python 2.7 and python 3.4) Anyways... food for thought? Thanks, -- Raul On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 5:35 AM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > Minimal Beginning J fills an important gap. One I had on my list to fill > urgently -- but Devon's got there first, with a surprisingly simple starter > set. Good Work, Devon! > > Initially I was tempted to second-guess Devon by tweaking his list. Soon I > was convinced that if somebody could improve upon it, that somebody wasn't > me. > > People coming from C, Basic, Python, etc etc will straightaway say: hey > where's a[3] ? Should we give them { and } ? By the same token, people > coming from Fortran (and Basic) will say: hey where's GOTO? Should we give > them (goto_name.)? > > Bear in mind that Minimal Beginning J is the first rung on a long ladder. > The hitherto missing first rung! Since it already offers }. {. and # -- why > not leave { and } to the second rung? > > What's still badly needed though is some evidence this starter set is good > enough for some recognizable programming of a general nature. Not just fit > for knocking down a few carefully chosen straw-men. > > I know little or no Python, so a visit to www.python.org is most > instructive -- and very sobering. Almost the first thing a beginner like me > sees is a list of "Simple programs" ( > https://wiki.python.org/moin/SimplePrograms). > > We could do worse than rip-off this list of coding tasks *exactly* as it > stands and show them in Minimal Beginning J. A sort of "Minimal Beginning > Rosetta", if-you-will. I know "me-too" isn't that sexy a sport -- but is > the first rung really the place for "me-only"? > > > On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 4:12 AM, Scott Locklin <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Nice work, Devon. >> One of the things I would like to do eventually is a sort of "J for >> Matlab/R programmers." I figure J is vastly more useful as a general >> purpose language than these, but it is also first rate for all kinds of >> numerics and mathematical applications. There is a large population of math >> people who would prefer something better than Matlab or R, but for most >> languages, math is sort of a second class citizen. >> >> -SL >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> 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
