Some members of the mailing list who are interested in linguistics might find the following article interesting.
http://nautil.us/issue/54/the-unspoken/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-english-sentence One of the reasons I keep lurking on J related mailing lists is the wide range of topics that come up for discussions! Until I learned of J, somewhere in 2010-2011, I was completely unaware of APL/J/K/Q but was comfortable with using many different programming languages. Most languages I had used until that point all had BNF grammars which I could grok relatively easily and was confident in my ability to learn languages. I was surprised to learn that J did not have BNF grammar but it still had rules for parsing (dictionary of APL/J) and one could still get a lot done. One of the things I learned during that intense phase of learning J is that I needed to actually write, which J makes so easy with such fascinating topics/essays, J code/programs so that I could get accustomed to the language of APL/J. Now that I'm more familiar with it I don't need to write as much J (still tough going reading APL though!) and can formulate pieces that I need and can get a moderately complex program/script relatively quickly. Somehow, this article made me think of how J has fundamentally altered (in a very good and productive way) how I think and I felt compelled to share this article with the group. Please pardon if it appears incoherent. Cordially, Vijay. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
