It's just struck me what's bugging you.
I've thought to run j701, which I haven't touched for months. (But I
will... I will...) The release highlights were, I suspect, written in
haste by the developers, who were addressing an audience of j602
users. I doubt it occurred to anyone that a novice might be bamboozled
by the term: "jhs menu".
When you start a jhs session you are met with a browser window showing:
J Http Server
in big red letters, plus a line above it showing:
link ▼ action ▼ debug ▼ studio ▼
This, to me, is the "jhs menu".
The subsequent advice is sound. The best thing to do at this point is
to pull down the 4 menus in turn. Under: "studio" -you will see:
"demos". Study the demos in turn. That's the quickest, most succint
(and in J-ers' eyes therefore the best) way of seeing how to use jhs
to create an app. You might like to build your first app by simply
modifying one of these demos.
Some novices might have preferred their first-contact experience to
have been something more verbose. Like a video. That has to come
later. But it's hard to think what it would tell you the release notes
and demos don't.
But of course it would convey it unambiguously.
Maybe the best we'll get this year is a bumper-sticker saying:
J-ers rtfc
On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 4:18 AM, Francis Lambrechts <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks for the answer Ian.
> I'm going to progress that way.
> Some more info in my answer to Bill Lam.
> --
> Francis
>
>
>
> On Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:58 +0100, "Ian Clark" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>> Francis,
>>
>> J (which costs >$500 less than its nearest competitors) is documented
>> by its users. All the best novice material, any product, gets written
>> by (recent) novices. In the nature of things, novices can't get to
>> work until there's a stable release, which for j701 only happened this
>> year.
>>
>> IMO there is no shortage of J entry-level stuff. Trouble is, none of
>> it is fully debugged, which has to be done using... novices! Some of
>> the good stuff is hard to find. http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/ is IMO
>> actually the best place to start.
>>
>> Google searches the site far better than anything site-search can
>> manage. But that's true for the Microsoft knowledge-base too -- and
>> has been so for the last 10 years.
>>
>> Soon you learn to search the site on people's names. Work thru
>> http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/CategoryHomepage (it'll only take ten
>> minutes) and make a list of your favourite contributors, and what
>> they're good at. Unsurprisingly their ease-of-comprehension by novices
>> tends to vary inversely with their expertise (there are exceptions).
>> Some you grow into. I'll pm you with my personal gurus if you ask me
>> to, but I haven't the gall to do so here.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 1:59 AM, Francis Lambrechts <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > J602/701 are fantastic products but it is frustrating to follow
>> > the "good idea" below.
>> >
>> > http://www.jsoftware.com/docs/help701/user/relhigh.htm
>> > "701 J Front End (JFE) changes are revolutionary!
>> > Previously the primary JFE was based on Jsoftware's proprietary
>> > WD (window driver).
>> > 701 abandons WD.
>> > J Engine change makes it relatively easy to completely write a
>> > JFE in J. This has enabled the development of two new J front
>> > ends.
>> > The first is JHS (J HTTP Server) where a browser is the front
>> > end.
>> > The second is JGTK which is based on the GTK+ portable library
>> > for creating graphical user interfaces.
>> > Get Going
>> > J has a console interface called jconsole and a GUI interface
>> > called jhs. Use jhs for an easier introduction to both standard
>> > and new features.
>> > "Whether you are new to J or an old hand, it is a good idea to
>> > start by exploring the jhs menu. Browse help to get an idea of
>> > what is there and how to navigate."
>> >
>> > So i tried to find something about "jhs menu" or "jhs" in the
>> > Site Search
>> > 1. lots of unusable "Add on" references for a beginner
>> > 2. "jhs start" gives something
>> > http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/NYCJUG/2011-02-08/HelloWorldInJHS
>> > How true : " We sometimes get blinded by something we think is
>> > trivial and forget to tell others about the initial steps
>> > needed."
>> > 3. in http://www.jsoftware.com/help/index/j.htm the f3-find does
>> > not work on that page ... how could you find "jhs" in such a long
>> > page?
>> > 4. Wow ... not even a search here too ?
>> > http://jsoftware.com/pipermail/programming/
>> >
>> > You did a great job with J701 and i hope you can improve the
>> > access to beginners.
>> > I'm not going to give up.
>> >
>> > Another detail "C:\Program Files\J701\bin\jhs.bat" seems not
>> > working ... is it due to the custom installation ?
>> >
>> > Good luck anyway
>> > --
>> > Francis, Brussel
>> >
>> > --
>> > http://www.fastmail.fm - Does exactly what it says on the tin
>> >
>> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>> >
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>
> --
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>
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