Devon, The demo of Conway's Life in APL http://tr.im/hVvp is a very nice presentation that will likely be familiar to your audience. One possibility would be to rework that code in J, perhaps working in parallel to the steps shown in the video.
When I did something like that for myself one thing that jumped out at me was the way J lets me do two rotations in a single function, with each rotation specified by an atom in the left vector. I especially enjoyed seeing the simplification provided by |. and I furthermore think the J symbol is visually mnemonic in the same manner as the two APL rotation primitives it replaces. That's a simple, clear example that shows how J extends array-thinking. Other examples may emerge from translating or abstracting that demo code. Tracy On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 12:18 PM, Devon McCormick <[email protected]> wrote: > Members of the Forum - > > I'm supposed to give a 40-minute or so talk at BAPL09. I've chosen as my > topic "The State of SIGAPL and Musings on J": a report on the status and > prospects of the (former) SIGAPL will be followed by a brief introduction to > J and how it continues Iverson's legacy. > > Unfortunately, the SIGAPL portion of this talk shouldn't take more than a > couple of minutes, so I've got to come up with something about J that would > be interesting to a bunch of APLers. I have a few ideas but would be > interested in hearing what people would suggest. > > Also, is anyone else from this forum going? > > Thanks, > > Devon > > -- > Devon McCormick, CFA > ^me^ at acm. > org is my > preferred e-mail > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
