NYCJUG/2012-02-14

Coding skill, understanding J code, complexity of alternatives as a selling point, JHS plotting, reading code, end-of-month date generation, Open J, how better to learn, APL in the modern era, APL and J conferences.

Agenda

             Meeting Agenda for NYCJUG 20120214
             ----------------------------------

1. Beginner's regatta: an encouraging trend - see "Coding Skill Becoming More
Seen as More Fundamental.pdf".

An attempt to interest a bond analyst in J: see "Ad Hoc J-Consol Pricing.pdf".

How useful is it to point out the baroque nature of commonly accepted coding
practices in relation to the simplicity of J?  See "Examples of Reading a
Binary File in C++.pdf".


2. Show-and-tell: breaking down a short piece of J with a lot going on: see
"A Lot Going On in a Short Expression.pdf".

Simple application of J to create list of end-of-month dates: see "Creating
EOM dates simply.pdf"

JHS becoming more useful - plot now works - see "Plot Works in JHS.pdf" and
"jdemoIJS.pdf".

Reading J - how bad is this code?  See "chgPfolsIJS.pdf"


3. Advanced topics: How to better learn - see "Everything You Thought You
Knew About Learning Is Wrong.pdf

Open J needs workers!  See "OpenJNeedsWorkers.pdf".


4. Learning, teaching and promoting J, et al.: encouraging a second look at
what APL has to offer in modern software - see "APL Deserves Another
Look_obt12_submission_11.pdf".

See "Upcoming Conferences - J and APL.pdf".

The Two Things - what are the two things about J?  See "The Two Things.pdf".

Proceedings

Beginner's Regatta

More people are seeing the advantage of understanding code, according to this article in Business Week. This same topic was also the subject of a recent New York Times article. Some of the people interviewed in these articles are interested in writing their own code to automate tasks or other, personal uses. This could be a good selling point for J as its minimal overhead and interpreted environment allows novices to get results quickly.

I was struck by thoughts like this when I recently had to get a simple piece of C++ code running - the simple task of reading the contents of a file is encrusted by many lines of code. Not only that, but there are multiple, different versions of contemporary C++ even from the same vendor. Microsoft has a "CLR" (common language runtime) version of C++ that looks substantially different from the more traditional versions it also makes available. We attempt to contrast the complexity of C++ code with J here.

Materials

• File:Coding Skill Becoming More Seen as More Fundamental.pdf
• File:Ad Hoc J-Consol Pricing.pdf
• File:Examples of Reading a Binary File in C++.pdf
• File:A Lot Going On in a Short Expression.pdf
• File:Creating EOM dates simply.pdf
• File:Plot Works in JHS.pdf
• File:ChgPfolsIJS.pdf
• File:Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong.pdf
• File:OpenJNeedsWorkers.pdf
• File:APL Deserves Another Look obt12 submission 11.pdf - original here.
• File:Upcoming Conferences - J and APL.pdf
• File:The Two Things.pdf