> 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.
I think I understand. If I were in a similar situation I would ask myself, is it worth to spend the time and effort? Would it help me to get a position in the academia or the industry? Uncertainty? Check! Even if I could use J just for prototyping and quickly produce proof on concepts, would I have the necessary tools and acceptable performance? Uncertainty? Check! If I could use J to implement apps or systems in a particular field, would it perform properly? In the long run, would I have access to the necessary supporting up-to-date libraries? Would J be alive and well? Would I have to spend too much of my time adding extensions to the interpreter to satisfy my needs? Would the J Source be up-to-date? How many people would be really familiar with the J source? Would be able eventually to hire, or attract, some help to extend the language (if necessary)? Would I have to teach J first to the helpers? Would I have the resources? Would the extensions patches survive J Source updates? Should I try to update the patches and keep up with the latest J Source? Could there be legal implications? Uncertainty? Check! I am afraid the above might not be very encouraging; but, I probably also went too far (reflecting my own past and present worries). However, there is another aspect which is very important (at least to me): J makes programming an intellectual pleasure. It is not the only one, even from my vantage point, I enjoyed programming in MicroAPL.68000 (its successor has been effectively absorbed by... Dyalog APL!), and later in Dyalog APL although not as much. I probably would have had pleasure programming in kdb+/q; then again, knowing J would help one to switch to Dyalog APL or kdb+/q, if necessary and possible (they are not immune to uncertainty either). In my experience, if your job becomes a hobby for you good things happen; yet, I should disclose that I am by nature a risk taker (when my expected reward justifies it). Anyway, If wors come to worst learning J would be, and I strongly suspect it already is, expanding your vision. I hope it helps. PS. "Better late than never." Welcome to the forums! On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 12:40 PM, james faure <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 <[email protected]> on behalf of robert > therriault <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2018 5:52:01 AM > To: [email protected] > 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 <[email protected]> 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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
