Like Marshall I'd be inclined to shift focus away from grammar and syntax. I remember, when first coming to J, being most impressed by Studio > Labs... --the message of simplicity they delivered -- and hadn't met since FORTH. I was keen to know what contributed to it and made it possible.
Notably "Plot package". For so many years I'd met so many plotting packages on so many platforms and I wondered why they couldn't all have been that simple. What still stuns me about J is the inspired absence of crap when interfacing with the outside world (viewmat, plot, wd...), achieving cross-platform application development almost as a side-effect. Mine is an extreme view, and I offer it only as a counterbalance to what I imagine most J-ers would showcase to a total newcomer, viz its grammar and syntax, at work on some impressive mathematical task. Horses for courses, however. Who's the audience? Mostly research mathematicians? Or coding hacks like me? But I'd say even research mathematicians will be most impressed, not by the J approach to their particular line of expertise, but what they hope from their computer and don't want to muck around with themselves: viz display and storage of a result and employing it in some other domain. Can we have the result(s) of Devon's exercise in the form of a Lab, please? Already "Labs" has 4 introductions to J (A J Introduction; A Taste of J; An Idiosyncratic Introduction to J; An Introductory Course in J) -- but I fancy there's room for a fifth from Devon, from his present far-seeing perspective. Ian On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 1:13 AM, Marshall Lochbaum <[email protected]> wrote: > I would be tempted to forego grammar and show some linear algebra in J. > Maybe use the example Mr. Rich offered a while ago for finding if a line > segment intersects a ball: > C (R >: +/&.:*:)@:([- ]* 0>.1<.%.)&(-&S) E > with center C, radius R, and endpoints E and S. > Trains and &. are a must, and are covered in this example. > In fact, a solid five minutes would just be to get this expression across. > > Marshall > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Roger Hui > Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 6:58 PM > To: Programming forum > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Presenting J at the "Language Slapdown" this > week > > If I only have 5 minutes then I would try to get across the following > points: > > - Verbs apply to nouns to produce nouns. > - "Everything" is a noun. > - Adverbs apply to verbs to produce verbs. > > The examples would be tailored to the audience. > e.g. In NYC I would have a VWAP example. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Devon McCormick <[email protected]> > Date: Tuesday, November 16, 2010 15:01 > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Presenting J at the "Language Slapdown" this > week > To: Programming forum <[email protected]> > >> This just in (from the organizer of the Slapdown): >> >> > I have received a large number of cancellations from >> presenters in the >> last five days. So, instead of 16 languages we are down to 7. >> > This small number defeats the purpose of the event, so I am >> going to >> cancel it. >> >> Nurts! >> >> Thanks to all who offered suggestions. It's not a total waste as I >> now have a 5-minute J intro at the ready. >> >> For those of you with ideas on how to go about this, it might be >> worthwhileto put together your own 5-minute intro. I'd like to see >> how others approach this. Especially interesting would be some "live" >> demos: I had >> planned to assemble a lab to do this before I realized that the >> presentations were supposed to be canned. >> >> I'm sure Raul (see below) is correct about my attempt as I did skim >> through the pages with the graphs in my rehearsals in order to keep >> within the time limit. However, part of my strategy was to give >> people something interesting to look back to as this presentation >> would have been availableon-line. >> >> On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> > You will probably see this too late. >> > >> > In my opinion, you are still trying to present too much for five >> > minutes. Those pages are very busy, and I think they present too >> > much for a five minute presentation. >> > ... > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
