Yup. You don't have to define every word. And examples are the place to wow them. They may forget everything else but would latch on to a memorable example. The lab "An Idiosyncratic Introduction to J" is a synthesis of demos given at a booth in the AMS annual meeting. For that audience, I computed the determinant of the Hilbert matrix and found its unique prime factors, and computed the order of the subgroup generated by a random permutation.
----- Original Message ----- From: Devon McCormick <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 9:16 Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Presenting J at the "Language Slapdown" this week To: Programming forum <[email protected]> > In the text of my talk, not present on the slides, I mention the > seamlessintegration of arrays and the example of the Newton > solver is intended as an > example of iteration without explicit looping. You're > right that this could > be emphasized more to a non-APL audience. > > One thing I particularly like about the solver example is that > it has no > "moving" parts - all the looping and checking one would do for > this in a > more conventional language are subsumed by general rules, > freeing us to > consider a static representation of the iterator. > > Also, if you look at the fourth slide ("Flexible Building > Blocks") of my > presentation, you'll see an aside where I note that "verb noun"- > >"noun" and > "verb adverb"->"verb". I put this in to give an idea of > J's underlying > simplicity but did not intend to make it a major point because > my biggest > concern here was getting over the hurdles caused by the unconventional > terminology to point out how useful the language is in practice. > > There's probably a rule about how many new words you should > introduce. I > concentrated on five (figuring one per minute) - noun, verb, adverb, > monadic, and dyadic - but cheated by introducing "conjunction" > at the end > without explaining it. > > On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 11:46 AM, Ian Clark > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > You, with your APL background, are so used to the > > > power of arrays, functions, and operators that you > > > take them for granted. But the power of these > > > is the message I want to convey to the uninitiated. > > > > If, as Devon says, "the audience was coders who are interested in > > languages and the mandate was to show code", then you are > right and I > > am wrong. > > > > Maybe I'm still too focussed on presenting J to an APL audience. > > > > Even a discussion concentrating on arrays, functions and > operators can > > still exhibit plot and viewmat in passing, as it were. And be > all the > > more powerful for that. > > > > Ian > > > > > > On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 3:37 PM, Roger Hui > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > My presentation > > > - Verbs apply to nouns to produce nouns. > > > - "Everything" is a noun. > > > - Adverbs apply to verbs to produce verbs. > > > is not necessarily focussed on grammar and syntax. > > > > > > You, with your APL background, are so used to the > > > power of arrays, functions, and operators that you > > > take them for granted. But the power of these > > > is the message I want to convey to the uninitiated. > > > > > > In fact, if I had to tell the story of J (or APL) in a > > > "1 minute elevator conversation", the above would > > > still be what I'd say. > > > ... > -- > Devon McCormick, CFA > ^me^ at acm. > org is my > preferred e-mail > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
