On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 12:00 AM, gary ng <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 11:24 PM, Tracy Harms <[email protected]> wrote: > >> However, when I look at the most important qualities of "functional >> programming", and the sort of programming that is routinely identified >> as the alternative, it looks to me that J is among the very best >> functional programming languages. > > > This I agree. I find more similarity in Haskell and J than difference in the > function composition area. Though not sure how monad(the Haskell term, not > J/APL term) would be applicable to J.
It's been hard to research without actually learning Haskell. It seems to me that several important monads (in the Haskell meaning of the word) are built in to J and transparently available. Those that are not built in to the core language may be pretty hard to implement in J. But as I indicated, I've not yet found anybody who has sufficient knowledge in both languages to be able to deeply elaborate the topic in terms of J. Heaven knows it's far beyond my competencies. > I would say only a very small percentage of people care that much about TCO > or whether the language is pure. Most modern language is a blend of OO, > Imperative and FP. Though I doubt more people would turn to J even if you > can convince them it is very FP style friendly. I'm not particularly interested in having people turn to J. What I'd really like is to have more of the articles I read be written from a perspective knowledgeable enough so that things are not presumed to be one way when, for J coders, it's very different. Not a realistic dream, that, but I am tiring of having to work so hard to discern when the things I'm reading contain interesting ideas that reach beyond what I have been exposed to through J, and when the advice I'm reading is of no value because the problems being solved don't occur when using J. Tracy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
