That is an alarming statement, especially as the first line on the site.
> Words are expressed in the standard ASCII alphabet. Primitive words are spelled with one or two letters; two letter words end with a period or a colon. The entire spelling scheme is shown in the system summary. The verb ;: facilitates exploration of the rhematic rules. Thus:
> The source code for word formation is in the files w*.c. The process is controlled by the function wordil (word index and length) and the table state. Rows of state correspond to 10 states; columns to 9 character classes. Each table entry is a (new state, function) pair. Starting at state S, a sentence is scanned from left to right one character at a time; the table entry corresponding to the current state and character class is applied.
I'm already lost, and this is the first example.
jonahx•1h ago
"The reader is assumed to be familiar with J and C."
And anyone reading this at the time would have been familiar with APL as well.
It's not intended to be beginner friendly. Like J, and like the original J dictionary, the values here are brevity, compactness, and essence. There is plenty of other more beginner friendly material on J out there.
great_wubwub•1h ago
Me too, but
> This document describes an implementation of J in C. The reader is assumed to be familiar with J and C.
jandrese•52m ago
I have to admit I got to https://www.jsoftware.com/ioj/iojATW.htm and seriously considered if the site is just pulling my leg. I think they're being sincere but I can't be 100% sure.
That example is what got me to start learning J which I have always found to be unreadable, much prefer my array languages to have their non-ascii symbols. A few nights playing with J and learning was enough to not be completely lost and able to make some progress, but it is still a challenge. When it says it "describes and implementation of J" it is not kidding, it describes the implementation and goes no further. Both the article and the code stick to this sort of terse and very concise language.
"Ken Iverson - The dictionary of J contains an introductory comment that J is a dialect of APL, so in a sense the whole debate is Ken's fault! He is flattered to think that he has actually created a new language."
larodi•30m ago
last updated: 2000-06-23
bdangubic•27m ago
2.5 decades of rock solidness :)
keyle•13m ago
There is a reason most modern programming languages have not followed suit on this syntax... It's pretty thick.
jandrese•1h ago
That is an alarming statement, especially as the first line on the site.
> Words are expressed in the standard ASCII alphabet. Primitive words are spelled with one or two letters; two letter words end with a period or a colon. The entire spelling scheme is shown in the system summary. The verb ;: facilitates exploration of the rhematic rules. Thus:
> The source code for word formation is in the files w*.c. The process is controlled by the function wordil (word index and length) and the table state. Rows of state correspond to 10 states; columns to 9 character classes. Each table entry is a (new state, function) pair. Starting at state S, a sentence is scanned from left to right one character at a time; the table entry corresponding to the current state and character class is applied.I'm already lost, and this is the first example.
jonahx•1h ago
And anyone reading this at the time would have been familiar with APL as well.
It's not intended to be beginner friendly. Like J, and like the original J dictionary, the values here are brevity, compactness, and essence. There is plenty of other more beginner friendly material on J out there.
great_wubwub•1h ago
> This document describes an implementation of J in C. The reader is assumed to be familiar with J and C.
jandrese•52m ago
jonahx•40m ago
There have a been at least a couple attempts I've seen posted here of blog posts breaking down the code in a beginner friendly way. One I dug up is: https://blog.wilsonb.com/posts/2025-06-06-readable-code-is-u...
Related: https://needleful.net/blog/2024/01/arthur_whitney.html
ofalkaed•55m ago
mlochbaum•53m ago
"Ken Iverson - The dictionary of J contains an introductory comment that J is a dialect of APL, so in a sense the whole debate is Ken's fault! He is flattered to think that he has actually created a new language."