Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv1!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!malgudi.oar.net!ucunix.san.uc.edu!att!cbfsb!cbnewsc!jwd
From: jwd@cbnewsc.cb.att.com (joseph.w.davison)
Subject: Re: Programming in J
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1991 04:38:43 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Nov12.043843.6998@cbnewsc.cb.att.com>
Keywords: J
References: <1991Nov5.212542.20160@apollo.hp.com> <1991Nov5.234044.3676@cbnewsc.cb.att.com> <1991Nov9.042909.8290@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM>
Lines: 40

In article <1991Nov9.042909.8290@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM> hui@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM (Roger Hui) writes:
>Re comments from Joseph W. Davison.
> 
>It seems unreasonable to complain about " "hook" and "fork" and other
>amazing but obscure references" on the one hand, and to decline to
>obtain the available documentation on the other.  

Touche!
I was not actually "complaining," rather, "commenting."  I have not
declined to obtain the available documentation, but have yet done so; I
probably  will, when it becomes important to me.

>Regarding the fears
>about the documentation.  Yes, there are definite dangers:  one might
>actually learn something, and invincible ignorance will cease to be
>available as a defense.
>

True enough, but unassailable arrogance is hardly an appropriate
response to a potential customer's comment "I find the on line help
obscure." I've expended a little time in finding references that help
in relieving that "I'm missing something" feeling I was responding to.
Your reply would have been more helpful if it had provided the
reference I was fumbling for.   

Don't get me wrong, I like what I've seen in J; and have no desire to
trade insults.  The comment "amazing but obscure" is, I think, an
appropriate description, and is meant to be a compliment. I'm sure that
buying the book and studying it will enable many programmers, probably
even me, to master the language.  But, I dropped into this newsgroup in
the middle of some of the recent examples, and I'll assure you that
[removing the syntactic ambiguities from APL, so that whitespace is no
longer needed to allow parsing] has not improved readability by passers
by  -- In case you were wondering, J ain't COBOL, which was designed to
allow nonprogrammers to read it.  That's not critism, that's fact!  You
may even be proud of it :-)    J looks like fun! I'll play with it a
while.

-- 
 Joe Davison      jwd@ihlpk.att.com 
