Hello all: I am brand new to J. (I mean brand new as in, I heard about it for the first time the day before yesterdy--haven't even gotten through the first tutorial yet.) Nevertheless, having found out about it via a mention of K on lambda-the-ultimate.org, I was immediately intrigued. I work in the Math Group at Boeing (which is effectively an "internal consulting firm" for applied-math & software) and am always on the lookout for tools that might increase my group's effectiveness. FYI my language background consists primarily of C++, Python, Perl, and Lisp.
I have two immediate worries about J that I wonder if people on this list could assuage: 1. "J Programming Language" is a 562-hit Google query. That is basically equal to zero, for large values of zero. So I am immediately concerned that I am spending energy learning something that nobody knows about. Is this just because J is so new? Are there strong indications that the J community is growing in size and influence? 2. I was appalled at the "foo =. 3 : 0" syntax for defining a verb. I've heard so much about how elegant J is, but this was one of the first things I came across in the tutorial, and using integers as special tokens like this strikes me as supremely arbitrary and inelegant--and this is coming from a Perl hacker. I know that I can use "verb define" instead of "3", but why is "3" even an option--why not at least "v"? I mean, it smacks of hardcoded-constant inelgance. Can someone educate me as to the "roots" of this notatation, i.e., does it derive from some "legitimate" area of mathematical notation or concepts that I am simply not familiar with? (Very likely--I am not a mathematician!) 3. Having just signed up for this mailing list, the first things I noticed were the mention of Mathematica and Maple (two languages with which, regrettably, I have little ande zero experience with, respectively). Is is fair to regard J as a "challenger" in the Mathematica/Maple market? Thank you for your patience with my Absolute Newbie questions. I'm looking forward to learning more about J, and I appreciate your help. Sincerely, Michael Drumheller ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
