On 16 November 2012 20:04, Skip Cave <[email protected]> wrote: > ....................... it is just > incredibly difficult to find information that one needs relevant to a > specific issue.
I have noticed how strangely the historic literature on APL and J is located around Jsoftware web site. Most of it is under jwiki/Essays/Bibliography, some under jwiki/Articles, and some of it all is linked to from several places in the huge list of Essays. And from the main page, one sees neither 'Essays' nor 'Articles' -- it is a matter of guessing that this treasure is hidden under 'Showcase'. Another problem is that none of those articles links back to the list it belongs to. Suppose a stranger opens an article lead by a Google search, say, http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APLDesign.htm. How can he know there are other articles? If he is observant, he may notice the word 'papers' in the URL, so he may conclude that there are more, and try http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/. And indeed there is a list there, but with a warning that the 'more extensive bibliography' is somewhere else. Why are there (at least two) different lists at all then? In addition, some of the items in jwiki/Essays/Bibliography appear themselves to be lists, but easily go unnoticed, because they are visually indistinguishable. An example is 'Eugene McDonnell Papers and Articles' (http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/eem) -- a large and important enough collection to deserve a more prominent representation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
