The new ArrayCast episode is out.

[bobtherriault]

Ch-ch-changes

In this episode of the ArrayCast we have a discussion about technology's role in our world and a fond farewell to Bob, Stephen and Marshall.

Host: Conor Hoekstra

Panel: Marshall Lochbaum, Bob Therriault, Stephen Taylor, and Adám Brudzewsky.

https://www.arraycast.com/episodes/episode118-changes

If you listen to this episode you will hear my reasons for leaving the ArrayCast to move on to other pursuits. This also means that I will be leaving the J community. I have haunted these halls for the last 23 years and I think that it is time to move on. I thank all of the participants for sharing the experience with me and hope that you all look forward to many more years of J'ing.

Special thanks to Henry Rich for keeping the engine running and Eric Iverson for his trust in me during the work that we did on the wiki.

I bid you all adieu.

Cheers, bob

[Remington Furman]

Well that is sad news!  I can't wait to hear this one and learn the why.

I've always enjoyed your commentary in the show and the way you
communicate in metaphors.

The podcast is the primary reason I decided to dive into learning this
language.

Thank you very much for all the quality audio!

Remington

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to forum+un...@jsoftware.com.
>

[Thomas McGuire]

Good Luck Bob, you will be missed in the J community. I appreciate all the hard work you put into the J wiki and to Arraycast. I hope you achieve even more success in your endeavors yet to come.


Best wishes,
Tom McGuire

[Sanju Dutt]

Thank you and all the best for your future endeavours. 

Regards,

Sanju 

[Pepe]

All the best! 🫡

Sent from my iPhone

> On Nov 8, 2025, at 12:52 AM, 'bobtherriault' via forum <fo...@jsoftware.com> wrote:
>
> Ch-ch-changes

[sbl...@accessus.net]

Same here... all the best to each of you!

I'm more of a show lurker than a programmer (although I do try to grok array languages... not always successfully) and I've listened to all 118 episodes of ArrayCast.  My hope is that the rationality and moral compass each of the hosts (and guests) model will spread throughout the tech world.  Well, I have the right to hope!

Cheers,

Stan

[sbl...@accessus.net]

And I forgot to convey my 'Thanks!' for the enlightenment and entertainment all three of you have provided...

Thank you!

Stan

On 2025-11-09 10:06 pm, Pepe wrote:

[Pascal Jasmin]

> I will be leaving the J community

If I may sumarize your reasons, the world is messed up (unspoken, but subtext, increase in fascism), and technology, or tech executives, is assisting moving the world in wrong direction.  J/array languages won't fix those problems even if J is not responsible for it.

I too have struggled with direction of world since 9/11, actually.  My well adjusted empathic friends focus on family and local community improvement.  I/we will miss you.  You never did quite mention on the show any new ambitions.  Just a denial that it was cave dwelling.  Do you want to tell us any?

[Remington Furman]

I've listened to this episode twice now, and I most certainly understand
your desire to drop out of the tech scene.  I've long wrestled with
trying to find meaningful and agreeable work in an industry full of very
disagreeable actors and use cases.

The enthusiasm you and the other panelists shared throughout your
episodes helped rekindle some joy in writing software for me, and I
appreciate that.

Thanks again for all your work on the podcast and wiki, and best of luck
finding a virtuous path forward.

-Remington

[Raul Miller]

After reading the transcript for this podcast, and spending a few days
thinking about it (or, at least, sleeping on it), I've come to the
following maybe slightly relevant conclusions:

For Bob Therriault specifically, I can see where he has been
participating and I guess he is backing away from that. I think I
understand his vision, and I think I understand some of how he is
updating his efforts.

Meanwhile, for J and the larger issues of the world's ills .. I guess
I have mostly thought of J as a tool - meaning it's mostly only useful
in the context of how people use it. The problems there include the
reach of the tools (J can be no more useful than the platforms it runs
on can be, and only within the sorts of efforts that its users have
the patience and/or drive and/or time and energy to engage in).

For example, imagine using J to sort trash at a recycling center? Is J
suitable for that task? Maybe? Maybe not? Well, currently there's no
interfaces that I'm aware of between J and the sort of mechanisms
which could be used there. There's no J libraries of code relevant to
the processes. There's no flaws in those processes being discussed on
the forums here. I'm sure there's some people working on trash
sorting, but it's "out of scope" and for us the "state of the art" is
basically nothing.

Or, something simpler - digging holes in the ground. Although
computers are "general purpose" they are not that general, and I guess
we're all waiting for someone else to cope with the problems.

Or, from my perspective, we've let ourselves accept strong limits on
the usefulness of our tools.

I'm not sure how to address that. At one point there was a minor fad
favoring 3d printers, arduinos, raspberry pis, and so on, but we
didn't really engage there.

And, I guess, society's interests tend to have a corrosive character -
people share a focus on basic needs, but communities depend on some
degree of popularity to thrive.

But how to turn any of that into actionable and useful efforts?

Anyways, a part of the problem, as I see it, is that we're so rich in
our histories of how to deal with issues that we're often overwhelmed
by the possibilities.

And I don't know how to solve that. That said, I of course have a few
ideas. In fact, I have so many that the possibilities are also
overwhelming.

Anyways, good luck to you. I hope you do well,

--
Raul