Jig is a nice idea, but you read me spot on: I use only the jconsole, so I don't think I can give much meaningful insight there. For graphical J, I think the jhs is the right idea, webapps are nowadays taking the place of desktop based applications. To be honest though, I don't think it makes sense that J expend much effort on providing development environments, Everyone I work with ends up having different preferences and IDE's anyway, from vim through emacs, atom, komodo and vscode. The jconsole is the heart of J, and in my case the only thing I have ended up using (with vim).
The direct question about my learning style: I always start by finding a project, or some experiment I want to get done, and then make it happen. Thus I have a direct goal in mind to help focus my learning and a context in which to try to place the information I find in the manuals. I forgot to mention in my first post, what my mindset when learning J was. I was at the time planning to implement a language with llvm. Before trying to design a language (even a toy one), I wanted to research programming languages and try out as many different ones as possible. Enter J, and on the surface, J looked completely insane. Several days into learning J, my opinions were still reserved, and to be honest I didn't really believe it to be a serious language. Of coures, my object was to gain background information and understand the mistakes and ideas of the past, so I continued, and only now that I have penetrated deep enough, am I convinced of it's genius. So there it is, J has done a poor job of selling it's merits (perhaps the front page should have a title, and a front page listing reasons for 'why J?'). The reasons people have nowadays for not trusting J are very understandable, and due to many of the points I have raised, I still am not comfortable recommending J to anyone at this time, there is too much uncertainty about it's future. As a learning experience, J is extremely instructive, but betting on it is far too risky. The console doesn't feel oldschool to me, in fact python, ruby etc.. don't even offer anything else. There are some oldschool aspects in the console though. ________________________________ From: Chat <chat-boun...@forums.jsoftware.com> on behalf of robert therriault <bobtherria...@mac.com> Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2018 5:52:01 AM To: c...@jsoftware.com Subject: Re: [Jchat] Where is J going ? Hi J4, You have raised a lot of points and hopefully they will become areas of discussion by those who are more qualified than myself. The areas that I have interest in are the presentation of information through the interactive environment and effective use of the labs as an interactive teaching tool. It sounds to me as if you recognize the value of labs, but that they do not fit your learning style. Can you tell me a bit more about that? I am trying to determine what can distinguish effective labs from those that are less effective and your point of view on all labs may give me some ideas. The jig addon in the jqt environment is an example of the sort of interactive environment augmentation that I have worked on. There is a short video of the interface at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiPWVhoX1Z8 and also a lab running through some of the features under the name "jig augmented display". You seem to prefer the stripped down environment of the console, but I wonder if it would be able to attract more users, as the console, although very powerful, does feel a bit old school. And thanks for the effort of putting your extensive thoughts down on paper. My experience of the J community is that they will challenge you, but they are appreciative of the efforts all have put into developing the language - with your postings you are part of that process. Cheers, bob > On Feb 28, 2018, at 7:40 PM, james faure <james.fa...@epitech.eu> wrote: > > Andrew Dabrowski is right. If J continues to steer it's current course, it > will be quickly forgotten. Roger Hui himself seems to have abandonned J > (correct me if I am mistaken), in favor of Dyalog APL. I can vouch from first > hand experience how incredibly difficult it is to interest my friends in J > and in fact have yet to get a single other person from Epitech > http://international.epitech.eu/ to learn J, even though I believe they are > convinced of it's power. > > Epitech International<http://international.epitech.eu/> > international.epitech.eu > Dear International Students, We will be happy to welcome you to Epitech and > hope you will enjoy this unique learning experience! Epitech has solidified > its reputation ... > > > > Since I seem to be by far the youngest person with a serious interest in J, I > will try to explain my understanding of the current situation, in the hope > that it may be useful to jsoftware. I also must say that between the time > that I heard of J and commited to learning it, I was extremely unsure about > whether the language would have a future and whether it would be suitable to > do everything. Ultimately, Henry Rich's success story is the reason I am > here, without it I would probably still be wondering to myself from time to > time about J, but without the conviction that it is suitable, or worth > learning. Project Euler also played a big part, and seems to be the main > place where people first hear about J nowadays. And even with those > conditions being met, If I learned J, it is only because I am both extremely > determined, and was able to complete school projects with plenty of spare > time. I have shown J to many people at Epitech, but I remain the only person > who uses it, most of those people never made it past the first few steps. The > learning curve has to be reduced, and it must be done so in the style of this > decade. As an aside, on proofreading this, some of my statements are harsh, > so please keep in mind they are not criticisms, more like a plea for help on > J's behalf. Also please do not think me arrogant because of my convictions. I > am well aware that I am not affiliated with nor in charge of jsoftware. > > My initial statement at the beginning of the long thread in the source forum > about generators expressed my surprise at J's lack of optimization for such a > simple case as '>:i.1000x'. I have mentionned multiple times that extended > precision calculations are simply far too slow, and this has even threatened > my desire to continue with J by throwing some serious doubts on it's ability > to satisfy my needs. But the greatest threat to J's existence is it's > complete failure to keep up with modern trends: > > > 0 The name 'J' is now exposed as being idiotic - it is very difficult to make > google understand what one means by 'J'. In fact I am forced to preface every > google search with 'site:jsoftware', which is no doubt sufficiently annoying > to put off many people. The language must be renamed. > > 1 The website looks decades old, and it is difficult to find things. Some > people I have shown J to abandonned the attempt after a bare minute of > visiting it. > > 2 Stack Overflow, and more generally Q&A resources are extremely popular > nowadays, most people are simply too lazy to read documentation and will > always try to formulate their question to google first. Should this prove > unsuccessful, they are often much less motivated to continue. J has almost no > presence on SO. > > 3 The Foreign's in J and the interface to this are frankly an abherration: > nobody wants to have to learn or look up all the time how to activate this > and that foreign, and there is no reason why they shouldn't all have much > more logical names. In the same vein: the o. family must be given logical > names like 'cos' 'sin' etc.. The concern of polluting the namespace is a > miniscule one. I also would urge everyone to stop using phrases like '2 o. > y', and '6!:2' etc.. but for that to happen, these need standard default > names, even multiple aliases. Noone cares nowadays about the miniscule > performance loss associated with having multiple equivalent names, the > possibility of guessingand have it work anyway is far more important. > > 4 The SC based system has has got to go.. A modern program should certainly > not depend on strict formulation rules in order to run optimally > > 5 Information needs to be presented differently, and in a way more in keeping > with modern trends for webdesign. NuVoc is magnificent, and I very much > appreciate the significant effort that has gone into explaining J, but the > website's overall presentation is not good. > > 6 People nowadays are too lazy to download the qtide and try the labs, (not > my learning style but for sure they are valuable) > > 7 Why isn't there an online Jconsole that can be used interactively, on > jsoftware's frontpage ?? The closest thing I could find is the 3rd party > https://tio.run/#j > > This comes back to the concept that If Newcomers are not sufficiently hooked > in within 5 seconds, you lose them forever. > > 8 There must be bulitin help in the jconsole. Even if it bloats the binary, > builtin help is obligatory for J. (something like help '/' should print some > example uses of insert and a brief summary) > > 9 Error messages are incomprehensible to newcomers (why does 'Rank error' not > also print the offending verb, it's rank, and the offending nouns + their > ranks ?) - experienced users are happy to use the debug interface, but this > shouldn't be necessary. > > 10 The Jsources are written in a magnificent style, but need many more > explanations (I understand the jdevs are aware of this). > > 11 Developping J-otherlang communication is a good idea, but given the > current situation it feels like an admission of defeat. > > > Maybe there is no solution for J. Perhaps the timing is wrong, and it must > lie dormant, biding it's time before one day in the future rising up again, > in a new form. All we can do now is believe J is worth fighting for. > > I close this by saying I have the utmost respect for all Jers, but things > must change, and radically if J is to live. > > J4 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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
