Again, I ask, in " 4 The SC based system has has got to go... " what is "SC based"?
On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 9:40 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 -- Devon McCormick, CFA Quantitative Consultant ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
