I absolutely agree with Roger. Write the "best" J code you can for the RC forum. Make your code examples short, crisp, and elegant.
However for some programmers, terseness and elegance aren't necessarily good traits for a programming language.. J has many other features besides terseness that provide benefits for programmers, but those benefits may be overlooked if our focus is just on the shortness of our example code. I believe the key to attracting more interest in J, is to include more extensive comments and explanations with the example code in the RC forum than one would if we were presenting to an audience of J programmers. Create the most elegant code you can for the RC example, but follow the code with a clear explanation of how it works in English, that any programmer could understand. If programmers see an elegant J phrase, but dismiss it out of hand as a "trick" they won't take the time to investigate J any further. If an elegant J phrase solution is followed by a careful explanation of the various aspects of the solution, most programmers will be much more likely to stop and think about all of the ramifications of matrix operations and tacit programming. The whole purpose of the RC forum is to educate non-J-programmers of the advantages of J. I believe that the best approach to that education is to "show the elegance", then explain it in not-so-elegant English. . .Skip Cave Roger Hui wrote: > Rather than an overt evangelism, it may work better to > just write the "best" J code that you can, taking care > to make it as easy for the reader as you can. > This was the approach taking in the Project Euler problems. > http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems > Some new people have been motivated to learn > J as a result. (After you've sweat blood for > a few days solving a problem, you'd be highly > motivated to find out why the solution in > another language is so much shorter.) > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Sherlock, Ric" <[email protected]> > Date: Monday, October 12, 2009 15:43 > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Rosetta Code goals (was Limit limitation) > To: Programming forum <[email protected]> > > >>> From: Dan Bron >>> I'm still of the opinion that our goal on RC should be >>> >> evangelism -- >> >>> and I don't feel explicit code assists that effort. >>> >> I think that depends on the target audience of the evangelism. >> I imagine there are some who will look at a one-line, tacit J >> solution composed of primitives and be intrigued enough to >> devote the time required to work out what is going on, however I >> believe that those people are probably relatively few in number. >> The reaction of the majority (borne out by recent reactions on >> RC [1]) is something like: >> >> "Wow that's short, but it looks like unintelligible gobbledy >> gook to me. I wouldn't even know where to start trying to >> understand it ... Next!" >> (In some instances a number of J'ers may have a similar reaction!!!) >> >> The question for me is, if we go for a slightly more verbose >> style, that might be semi-comprehensible to a non-J'er, are we >> likely to drag in more potential users? We might need to go from >> answers that are 1/10 as long as others to only being 1/3 as >> long, but I think they will still "catch the eye". >> >> As long as the code blocks for separate implementations are well >> labelled (e.g. "=== Alternative short solution ===") then >> perhaps including both is an option that provides the best of >> both worlds? >> >> Another thing that will probably make a big difference to the >> attractiveness/readability of the J code on the site (and the J >> wiki) is providing syntax highlighting. I'd be willing to >> collaborate on such an effort. >> >> [snip] >> >>> But >>> I'm also willing to collaborate on a "house style" for J, >>> >> which would >> >>> neccesarily entail building consensus regarding our goals on RC. >>> >>> To that end, I've created a page on RC to start that dicussion: >>> http://rosettacode.org/wiki//HouseStyle . If you >>> >> have any ideas or >> >>> suggestions for the J community on RC, you can discuss it >>> >> there. >> >> I've put up some initial suggestions for goals. >> >> [1] >> http://rosettacode.org/wiki/User_talk:Dkf#Your_discussion_about_J >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
