I wrote a program in APL, some 30 years ago, which was essentially a
database program which fit the needs of a university department where
the conventional programs were not sataisfactory. It was possible to fit
this to the specialized needs as expressed by the person who did all the
bookkeeping. Data was entered in blanks on a form and other forms were
called on as needed. Effectively the random access data array was a
'spreadsheet' The original program was in IBM 360 APL but later
rewritten for a PC (using an STSC APL with no boxing. The manuals that
came with the APL version along with Gilman & Rose were very useful in
writing the program
However, while I am sure that the same thing could be done as or more
effectively in J . The only bind would be conversion, if needed, to and
from various spreadsheet or datafile formats in common use..
Don Kelly
On 02/12/2014 1:58 PM, Piet de Jong wrote:
Perhaps one of the issues is the cumbersome input/output of
“real world” data.
Input/output of data organised in say a spreadsheet is one of the
first things a serious user would like to achieve so that he/she can
get on with manipulations.
I know this is possible with tara etc and much appreciate the efforts
that have gone into the same. However a novice is instantly confronted
with “where is tara”, “how do I load it”, “how are directories/folders
structured” ,…
In other words a big hurdle and hassle.
Why not have a verb say “X.” or similar in J which reads/writes
spreadsheets. The definition could
X.=.readxlworkbook
where the latter is as in tara.
My sense is that reading and writing spreadsheets is more useful to
many J users or potential J users than, e.g. the anagram index A.
(I’m not suggesting the latter is not useful). Purists may object
since reading spreadsheets can be “easily” composed from more
elementary verbs. However this does not seem to be an objection
elsewhere in the language e.g.
x u/.y ↔ (=x) u@# y)
Perhaps I am mistaken.
On 3 Dec 2014, at 8:34 am, Skip Cave <s...@caveconsulting.com> wrote:
Actually, there was one person, Al Rose, who used to travel around with an
IBM Selectric typewriter with an APL type ball, an acoustic coupler, and a
small video camera and TV screen, demonstrating APL. He was a co-author of
the famous book "APL, an Interactive Approach" <http://amzn.to/1vM5BJX> He
put on a great show with APL, using the Selectric, showing off all the APL
primitives. I will never forget how he described the interpreter's output:
"it outputs the result right on the paper, like a house-trained puppy!" I
think he got quite a few people started in APL. At least, I was one!
Skip
Skip Cave
Cave Consulting LLC
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:04 AM, Scott Locklin <sc...@lugos.name> wrote:
The learning curve is pretty steep, and with all respect due this group,
there is not yet a Paul Graham who has both the chops to get rich using the
tool, and the literary skill to enthrall people on the subject.
Personally I am a novelty seeker. I liked Lisp, but was unhappy with it as
a numerics language (though it is quite capable of doing a good job here).
Never would have tried it if it were not for the eloquent Paul Graham
essays. I suspect a lot of people are like that. I daresay there would be
no Clojure or F# without Paul Graham. With J, I got lucky. I was trying to
build a mousetrap in Lisp, and someone smarter than me pointed out that it
would be a lot easier in J, and a lot of other things became super easy as
well.
The main downside to such languages is ... using popular languages after
fooling around in a lisp or in J feels like going from a Porsche to Fred
Flintstone's car with cement wheels. Upside is, you can often find APL or
Lisp in a decent programming environment. Like learning latin.
On a related topic, Kevin Lawler (author of Kona among other things)
pointed this course out to me the other day; a course on approximate
solutions to computationally hard problems taught in K. Man, I wish I had
taken such a course, taught in K or J. It looks mind melting.
http://cs.nyu.edu/courses/fall11/CSCI-GA.2965-001/
-SL
I'm not being rhetorical here but how would I have learned of array
languages if I hadn't had mental machinery (makeup?) to set aside my
biases/prejudices and give a new idea a decent chance (apparently this is
hard in itself!!! who knew??)??
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