[Jprogramming] @: and capped fork

[Alex Giannakopoulos]

*> Don Guinn* donguinn at gmail.com
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*> Sun Dec 2 14:12:01 UTC 2012
>
>* [BASIC] and the popular programming languages today are all essentially
scalar.
> They handle one element at a time and use loops to handle arrays.

While the central point of what you are saying is definitely true, remember
that it is not necessarily true for people using the *functional
approach*.  Before I came to J all my array code was comprised of maps and
composition of basic functions like transposes, reversals, etc.  Nary a
loop in sight.
And I said before I had no problem with that notation, which shares much
with J, in any language that has lambda calculus.  So Lispers, Haskellers,
MLers, etc, would not find J quite as alien as one might think!
The main reason I was attracted to J was the huge performance jump, and
also that I didn't want to use something like Matlab, even though it's
great with matrices, but not-so-great with other, general, language
features.

> Telling someone to look at the script in the library to find out how to
use [J] won't work.

Quite!
OK, I am a still only a casual J user, but I never cease to be amazed by
how many of its basic features I am still unfamiliar with!

> We need to thoroughly document these extensions and consider them part of
the J language.

Oh, yes.
Maybe we need an intro J book that doesn't deal so much with programming
concepts, but how to do simple things that are considered integral to a RAD
programming IDE.
How to change display modes, open a graphics window, build a form, use an
external library, link to a db, manage modules, etc.

On which note, I must ask:  What's the status of Labs under J701(gtk)?
Seem to be missing.  A few good labs on this sort of thing would be great,
and could easily be written cooperatively by the community.

Regards
AG

*> Joey K Tuttle* jkt at qued.com
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*> Sun Dec 2 17:32:03 UTC 2012
>
*> Also, people still have nostalgic memories of BASIC, e.g.
>
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/books/2012/11/computer_programming_10_print_chr_205_5_rnd_1_goto_10_from_mit_press_reviewed.html
*
*
Great link!  J-stylee programming in BASIC!
Made me smile.
Just shows you, it's the *spirit* that counts.