Hi all!
It is the best executable high level notation I found. I use it to
create algorithms I use in other languages.
It also gives me a good supply of problems to solve. Since it is such a
hopeless notation, using it is very difficult, which means using it is
good mental training. Like suduku.
Cheers,
Erling Hellenäs
Den 2017-11-28 kl. 21:59, skrev Andrew Dabrowski:
As much as I've complained about J in these forums I've been having a
good time translating some simple code into J. Someone gave me wise
advice, to stick with explicit definitions until I know the language
well, which advice I have cordially ignored because I'm having too
much fun playing code golf with tacit tangles.
I was fascinated by J because it seemed to try to build on aspects of
the human linguistic system. Natural language unfolds in one
dimension, time, so everything relevant to understanding a particular
word in a sentence either came before it or is yet to come. J seemed
to emulate this by having verbs which relate directly only to objects
on the immediate left and immediate right. Moreover J seemed to be
following a linguistic paradigm in have nouns which are inert, verbs
that act on nouns, and adverbs which modify objects. This seemed like
a promising way to exploit humans' natural linguistic capabilities.
But maybe that's not way the J community currently sees J. Do you
love J most because of (pick only one)
1. the NL inspired syntax;
2. the suite of array utilities;
3. the concision of J code;
4. its being open-source; or
5. _____________________?
I've come to feel that all programming languages are ugly compromises
that are about equally good/bad at solving practical problems, and the
"best" language is just the one you know the best. I used to be
contemptuous of Perl, but after having learned it well enough for my
purposes I now kind of enjoy the brain teaser quality of trying to fit
problems into its procrustean bed (although I still think it's a silly
language). I have no doubt that I could live happily with J as my
primary language, but only after an extended period of being
handcuffed to it and forced to assimilate its quirks. I don't know
that I'll have the patience for that.
Is there any project in the J repos that demonstrates the strength of
J, as opposed to just showing that it's at least as good as other
languages? Any project that would have been significantly harder to
complete with say Python? Does J have any killer advantage, even in
just one aspect of programming? Or does J just appeal to you the way
pistachio ice-cream might, it just tickles your palate in a
no-accounting-for-taste way? That's how it appeals to me.
I was hoping someone could talk me into studying J seriously, but now
it looks to me like a language which, with APL, has had enormous
beneficial influence on many other languages, but which has failed to
learn in its turn from them. J seems a tad solipsistic.
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