Gosi wrote:
.... snip
>
> Lets see how clear your opinions of J are.
>
Not too clear, probably, I'm still too unexperienced with new (for me)
ideas from array programming. Still, I feel the beauty of the whole
concept around it.
> I understand that you think J more or less meets your criteria
> (basically APL2 does meet your criteria too as far as I can gather)
>
Right.
> Even so you still do not want to use J (nor APL2 for that matter) ?
>
Yes and no, here. I'd like to, but I'm still at the beginning of a long
learning curve, and I don't know if it's worth. For sure, it does not if
I have to invest a bunch of money in the dark .... not in a world in
which I can choose from a myriad of other programming languages,
standardized (more or less) and freely distributed and supported.
> I have to admit I am a bit confused and that is basically very often
> the case that I hear people say yes APL is beautiful and can do
> everything but I do not want to use it more than for fun.
>
> What I can not understand is why?
>
Well, here I can only speak for myself. I find APL revolutionary, in the
*real* sense of the mental process involved in entering its world. But I
'fear' a little the lack of a public standard release (J apart). It's
very powerful, but I hardly find practical comparisons on the
performance side of the street.
No doubt about how faster you can develop very complex apps with it, but
on the other hand, the sheer performance under various situations is of
some importance, and since you have to know very well your language,
even to try to conform to some ... ehr... standard benchmarks (a la
shootout), I can not consider an involvement with that language until
some of the gurus gives me the possibility of comparing apples with
oranges (yes, I know that's unfair, but so goes the world out here, guys).
> Something is not getting through to the general public.
>
> In the very old days something could be objected against APL but I
> have not seen any valid arguments against APL for many years and still
> APL is not growing as much as it should.
>
Could this be that APL needs a standard, rock solid interpreter,
supported and in the public domain, with no bells and whistles but open
to the outside world (C/C++, Fortran, libraries etc.), so who wants to
start exploring can do it, and maybe a translator to C or a compiler, if
the performances are to be boosted up for some application ? (My dream
wishlist, I know :-) ).
> I guess our marketing effort is not as effective as it should be.
My 1/2 cent, Gosi, nothing more than that.
Marco
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