Newsgroups:   comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!utcsri!geac!itcyyz!yrloc!intern
From:         mgf@ipsaint.ipsa.reuter.COM (Gfeller, Martin (zurich K6,risk Mgt))
Subject:      Subject: spoke to Ken Iverson about J written material
Message-ID: <1992Oct19.185650.247@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM>
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Reply-To:     mgf@ipsaint.ipsa.reuter.COM (Gfeller, Martin (zurich K6,risk Mgt))
Organization: Reuters Information Services (Canada)
Date:         19 Oct 92 17:00:05 UT
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no. 6672146 filed 16.24.53  mon 19 oct 1992
from mgf
to   uclapl
subj Subject: spoke to Ken Iverson about J written material
ref  Message-ID: <Bw3r7M.9MJ@news.cso.uiuc.edu>

In reference to posting by Richard J. Gaylord <gaylord@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>

1. Different people learn things in different ways. Whether they 
   learn effectively from a particular set of documentation has
   little to do with the quality of the documentation. The TeXbook,
   for example, is of high quality, and nevertheless I (and many
   others) find it almost impossible to use. 

2. The J documentation perhaps suggests a "mathematical approach"
   to learning. This is certainly not the only way to learn
   a programming language (with some languages, one might despair
   when using a "mathematical approach"). Whether J has an inherent
   bias to that approach is not clear to me. Perhaps APL and J have
   that bias, and this could be one reason why some people don't
   like them.  

3. Professional documenters are perhaps more successful in providing
   "bias-free" documentation. However, ISI is not Borland, and one
   cannot expect the same from a company that provides shareware, and
   where language designers and implementors also write documentation.  

/Martin


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