[Jprogramming] One word description of J

[Roger Hui]

I think the premise of this discussion is flawed.
Why is the description restricted to one word?

There is an alternative, the "elevator conversation".
You know, you've met a stranger in an elevator and you have
to sell your idea during the elevator ride.  What would you say?
I've had some success using the +/x example.  If there
is more time it can easily extend into +/"r x .  If there is
more time still I might use avg=:+/%#  and avg"r x .

In January 2000, I was at the Iverson Software booth at the 
AMS meeting at Washing DC, http://keiapl.info/anec/#NSA1
giving people who dropped by 10 minute presentations on 
the computer.  The presentation was later codified as the lab 
"An Idiosyncratic Introduction to J".  Ken later expanded that 
into the lab "A J Introduction", 14 chapters of which the first 
is the "Idiosyncratic Introduction".  (Ken was so verbose!)



----- Original Message -----
From: Devon McCormick <devonmcc at gmail.com>
Date: Friday, June 10, 2011 7:01
Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] One word description of J
To: Programming forum <programming at jsoftware.com>

> My favorite adjective to describe J is "succinct".  
> However, the limitation
> of this single word fails to capture other important features of the
> language such as its power and clean, careful, extensible design.
> 
> Perhaps a more interesting exercise is to assemble a 30-second 
> or a 5-minute
> introduction to the language.  My own attempt (introduced at
> http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/DevonMcCormick/LanguageSlapdown, 
> presentation.JPGs at 
> http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/DevonMcCormick/PresentingJIn5Minutes)suffers from trying to cram too much into 5 minutes.  I doubt more than one
> person in a hundred would actually understand the bulk of this talk.
> 
> It's a lot more work than coming up with a single word, but the 
> J community
> would benefit from having an arsenal of short presentations like this.