Wiki/Report of Meeting 2022-01-06

J Wiki meeting of January 6, 2022

Present: Art Anger, Jon Hough, Raul Miller, Bob Therriault

1. Jon Hough reported on work that has been done by Will Gajate and Joe Bogner on rehabilitating the existing browser based J interface using emscripten to replicate the C source code in Javascript. http://joebo.github.io/j-emscripten/full.html This is a complex problem, but they will continue to work on it and a more complete report will be made next week.
2. Discussion about an introductory video for newcomers to J included suggestions that viewmat and plot be used to show some of the tools that J provides. In addition, it may be beneficial to use example code generating the Fibonacci series, or using Fractals or the Tara interface as examples to show some of the practicality of the J language. This initial video would be followed by a series of video threads based on the chapters of J by Point and Click, a lab written by Henry Rich that introduces the different parts of the jQt IDE.
3. Further discussion about the potential of having a main page of the wiki that would separate newcomers from users looking for resources, who would be directed towards the Nuvoc page. A Nuvoc page that could be augmented by links to the variety of wiki pages that exist and only effectively accessed through the search tools. This would make Nuvoc and its ancillary links a kind of an index into the user's different areas of interest. The prime motivation for using Nuvoc as the organizing structure is that it would be intuitive to the user already using Nuvoc to find information. Categories could also be assigned to the pages making a search by category viable so that users would have access to variety of similar pages that may be of interest, but might not be in the same area of Nuvoc.
4. In an email exchange, Ian Clark suggested that a method of validating and organizing information is a primary challenge of a wiki and one that will need to be solved if we are to be successful. This will be an ongoing challenge that we will need to address. We have some ideas but suggestions are welcome.
5. It was also noted that the existing phrases section, the J dictionary, old vocabulary pages and some J books are hosted on the jsoftware site separate from the wiki and this could make navigation in and out of these resources a bit confusing.
6. The meeting ended with a discussion about the ways in which wiki contributions could be effectively moderated and placed in appropriate areas of the wiki. Art Anger suggested that pages could be started in a User's page and then, when completed, could be moved to the appropriate location based on the recommendation of a panel. This would ensure that pages that are created could be vetted and put in the area of the wiki where they are most likely to be expected to be found.

If any of this interests you and you would like to get involved, please be in touch through the general forum and we will include you in the upcoming weekly meetings (Thursday -- maximum length 1 hour)

--Bob Therriault (talk) 20:28, 8 January 2022 (UTC)