I agree. It's hard to express in a paragraph how it is that the parts of J work together, and how, by letting you think about problems rather than implementation, it makes you a better, faster, more elegant programmer. A single word is more likely to be misleading than descriptive.
Henry Rich On 6/7/2011 9:16 PM, Marshall Lochbaum wrote: > The problem I see in finding such a word is that it not only has to convey > the power of implicit looping and tacit code, but is has to convey the > simplicity of J. J's interpreted nature and minimally designed primitives > make it much easier to use than other systems with fancier design. Frankly, > I'm not sure the English language has enough power to express that in one > word. > > Marshall > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ric Sherlock > Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2011 8:55 PM > To: Programming forum > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] One word description of J > > Yes certainly in Australasia calling something/someone "feral" is not > exactly a compliment! > > http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-of/feral > > On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 12:14 PM,<[email protected]> wrote: >> I think that the word "feral" has negative and destructive >> connotations. Not a word to use if you want to promote the use of J >> to a manager. >> >> Surely we need a word that indicates incredible usefulness or >> competence. How about "dextrous" or "omnidextrous". >> >> Simon >> >> >> Quoting John Baker<[email protected]>: >> >>> I've been thinking about what's a good single word description of J. >>> Something that suggests the important features of the language and >>> conveys the spirit of J programming. I offer the word: feral. >>> Here's a footnote I recently added to the upcoming JOD 0.9.3 > documentation. >>> >>> Coming up with an accurate description of J is a challenge. The >>> language is definitely array oriented and contains an almost pure >>> functional tacit sub-language. However J also contains substantial >>> imperative features and its clever use of locales and locale paths >>> simulates most of the useful features of object oriented languages. >>> Waving your hands and declaring a language multi-paradigm or agile is >>> the standard way out but unfortunately this does not distinguish J. I > think J is a *feral* programming language. >>> The word feral sounds like a mixture of functional and imperative and >>> the established meaning of feral: almost wild, wilily, able to >>> survive on your own but willing to cooperate – on your own terms - >>> conveys the independent free thinking character of J programmers. >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> John D. Baker >>> [email protected] >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> - 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 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
