

Easy J (2002) [pdf] - brudgers
http://www.jsoftware.com/books/pdf/easyj.pdf

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doomrobo
Would anybody with experience with J like to share what they did/didn't like
about the language or what they did and didn't expect from the language?

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saryant
J is fun when you're just starting. Hey, you can take the average of a list of
numbers with four characters of code!

When you go from that to writing a minimal CMS, things are less fun (actual
assignment from a professor who loved J).

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patricklynch
The hardest part of J is revisiting old code and trying to figure out what you
were thinking when you wrote it.

The cognitive cost of writing the same program in J versus your current
favorite functional language (let's assume Scheme) is basically the same. The
J version will be much more concise, and probably quicker to write.

But I found it much harder to review and extend my own J code. Where the
Scheme program I wrote last month will be mostly self-documenting and easy to
modify, the equivalent J program may as well be machine code.

I feel like I _should_ appreciate J more, because it is powerful, but it may
be too concise for me to be comfortable with.

-survived the same class (Hi Ryan!)

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saryant
We run into each other every time there's a submission about J.

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patricklynch
Just about. Same time in a year and a half?

~~~
saryant
I've marked my calendar.

