An Implementation of J (1992)

Oh yea, J sources, the nightmare fuel :D

I usually show it to folks when it comes to code aesthetics. They end up in disbelief.

I am new to array languages, but have really enjoyed the experience of using them so far. I have consistently had much better experiences following the tutorials and doing sample problems in most of the array languages I have tried compared to other languages.

I love being able to see an example and type it my editor in without having to switch back and forth a bunch of times because I forgot some syntax by the time I switched windows. Your data is a ball of dough and you can knead it into whatever shape you want with the primitives.

Even if I don't know what the symbols are, its still easier to remember because its less stuff you have to type in. Its a little bit of work up front to learn some of the verbs (why not use Anki and some mnemonics), but you really do have so much more room to think about the problem in your head. The compression is like a cool breeze on a hot summer day.

For those used to traditional language syntax, anything in the APL family is like Chinese to someone who only knows Latin-family natural languages. It's always amusing to see all the reaction comments when APL/J/K is posted here.

last updated: 2000-06-23

The more I see these languages that have neither power nor readability, the more I appreciate C.

There is a reason most modern programming languages have not followed suit on this syntax... It's pretty thick.

> J is a dialect of APL

That is an alarming statement, especially as the first line on the site.

> Words are expressed in the standard ASCII alphabet. Primitive words are spelled with one or two letters; two letter words end with a period or a colon. The entire spelling scheme is shown in the system summary. The verb ;: facilitates exploration of the rhematic rules. Thus:

       ;: 'sum =:+/_6.95*i.3 4'
    ┌───┬──┬─┬─┬─────┬─┬──┬───┐
    │sum│=:│+│/│_6.95│*│i.│3 4│
    └───┴──┴─┴─┴─────┴─┴──┴───┘
    

I'm already lost, and this is the first example.