Perhaps one of the issues is the cumbersome input/output of “real world” data.
Input/output of data organised in say a spreadsheet is one of the first things a serious user would like to achieve so that he/she can get on with manipulations. I know this is possible with tara etc and much appreciate the efforts that have gone into the same. However a novice is instantly confronted with “where is tara”, “how do I load it”, “how are directories/folders structured” ,… In other words a big hurdle and hassle. Why not have a verb say “X.” or similar in J which reads/writes spreadsheets. The definition could X.=.readxlworkbook where the latter is as in tara. My sense is that reading and writing spreadsheets is more useful to many J users or potential J users than, e.g. the anagram index A. (I’m not suggesting the latter is not useful). Purists may object since reading spreadsheets can be “easily” composed from more elementary verbs. However this does not seem to be an objection elsewhere in the language e.g. x u/.y ↔ (=x) u@# y) Perhaps I am mistaken. > On 3 Dec 2014, at 8:34 am, Skip Cave <[email protected]> wrote: > > Actually, there was one person, Al Rose, who used to travel around with an > IBM Selectric typewriter with an APL type ball, an acoustic coupler, and a > small video camera and TV screen, demonstrating APL. He was a co-author of > the famous book "APL, an Interactive Approach" <http://amzn.to/1vM5BJX> He > put on a great show with APL, using the Selectric, showing off all the APL > primitives. I will never forget how he described the interpreter's output: > "it outputs the result right on the paper, like a house-trained puppy!" I > think he got quite a few people started in APL. At least, I was one! > > Skip > > Skip Cave > Cave Consulting LLC > > On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:04 AM, Scott Locklin <[email protected]> wrote: > >> The learning curve is pretty steep, and with all respect due this group, >> there is not yet a Paul Graham who has both the chops to get rich using the >> tool, and the literary skill to enthrall people on the subject. >> >> Personally I am a novelty seeker. I liked Lisp, but was unhappy with it as >> a numerics language (though it is quite capable of doing a good job here). >> Never would have tried it if it were not for the eloquent Paul Graham >> essays. I suspect a lot of people are like that. I daresay there would be >> no Clojure or F# without Paul Graham. With J, I got lucky. I was trying to >> build a mousetrap in Lisp, and someone smarter than me pointed out that it >> would be a lot easier in J, and a lot of other things became super easy as >> well. >> >> The main downside to such languages is ... using popular languages after >> fooling around in a lisp or in J feels like going from a Porsche to Fred >> Flintstone's car with cement wheels. Upside is, you can often find APL or >> Lisp in a decent programming environment. Like learning latin. >> >> On a related topic, Kevin Lawler (author of Kona among other things) >> pointed this course out to me the other day; a course on approximate >> solutions to computationally hard problems taught in K. Man, I wish I had >> taken such a course, taught in K or J. It looks mind melting. >> >> http://cs.nyu.edu/courses/fall11/CSCI-GA.2965-001/ >> >> >> -SL >> >>> I'm not being rhetorical here but how would I have learned of array >>> languages if I hadn't had mental machinery (makeup?) to set aside my >>> biases/prejudices and give a new idea a decent chance (apparently this is >>> hard in itself!!! who knew??)?? >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> 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
