Report of the J wiki Meeting of August 8, 2024
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bobtherriault
Aug 29, 2024, 3:17:16 PMAug 29
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== Report of Meeting 2024-08-08 ==
Present: Ed Gottsman, Raul Miller, Devon McCormick and Bob Therriault
Full transcripts of this meeting are now available on the its wiki page. https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Wiki/Report_of_Meeting_2024-08-08
1) Bob mentioned that Chris had contacted him with instructions to log in to the wiki. Raul was able to log in and get the log files on their way to Ed to be interpreted.
2) Bob will only be available for two J wiki meetings until November. The next two weeks Bob will be involved with Iverson College, so the next meeting will be August 29th. After that Bob will be going to Italy for 6 weeks.
3) Ed will take the information that Raul has given him and create a bar chart of the most visited pages. Bob says this might be useful when we move on to the new format to evaluate the change in behaviour on user page visits.
A general discussion then began.
4) Ed would like to work on creating conversations in the J community and the most common are the J forums. The forums may be a good place to increase the traffic. Devon pointed out that the forum represents people that are already interested in J and that outreach may be a better approach. The recent NYCJUG had a few people who were already on the APLfarm https://aplwiki.com/wiki/APL_Farm which is a discord channel with a lot of array language enthusiasts. The ArrayCast podcast https://www.arraycast.com/episodes also generates interest in the wider community. Ed thinks that the cross fertilization of the different languages could be an effective way to widen the J community. Raul mentioned that there are also communities on Rosetta Code https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code and Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/apljk/. Devon mentioned that he had recently given a talk at a Hacker Conference that was outreach. Devon points out that Array languages are often used in finance and that is not a sharing venue. Ed feels that J is most often used for Math, even though it is promoted as a general purpose programming language.
5) Devon mentioned the post by Hillel Wayne about 'Toolbox languages' https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/toolbox-languages/ and Ed feels that you don't want to get pigeon holed that way if the language is general purpose. Devon thinks that logistics may be an area of growth for the array languages. Bob included a link to a Mark Guzdial article https://computinged.wordpress.com/2024/08/05/all-the-reasons-for-liberal-arts-and-sciences-majors-to-learn-to-program-ais-not-really-that-big-a-deal/ that says that there is a necessity to understand computing even when you are using and LLM for programming.
6) Bob hoped to give a talk at Iverson College about what the most appropriate audience for J might be. Bob felt that the primary grades represent the most opportunity, but it was hard to get into the curriculum. Devon and Ed said that they had been unable to interest their kids. Raul observed that it is difficult to turn J into a Christmas gift.
7) Ed wondered if there is an opportunity in domains that have not yet adopted computing. Finance is an area where the users wanted to incorporate formulas in their work and APL was more accessible to subject matter experts. The upcoming episode of the ArrayCast has Paul Teetor, an R programmer who says that the area of statistics and graphics are the primary domains of R. https://www.arraycast.com/episodes/episode86-paulteetor There was also an article by Ryan Hamilton about how KX had been out-maneuvered by open source alternatives. https://www.timestored.com/b/the-future-of-kdb/
8) Large Language Models (LLMS) may have trouble with array languages because they are terse and the amount of programming that is done is relatively small. Ed thinks that there may be a 'business analyst' role for LLM's to ensure that the result make sense in the real world. Testing is another area that humans may be required to develop appropriate unit tests to ensure that LLM's are working properly. Any language could be used for this purpose. Bob wondered if the array languages are better for probing the models which are big linear algebra problems. Raul thinks that is similar to incorporating ArrayFire into J. Raul says if there is an opportunity in anticipating the next big thing in computing. Perhaps LLM's could be turned on themselves to look at their constructs to make more appropriate naming in their foundational programs. Ed mentioned that star programmers are not helped by LLM's as much as the lesser programmers. J may be a better language for pioneer programmers. J is also a very good prototyping language.
For access to previous meeting reports https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Wiki_Development If you would like to participate in the development of the J wiki please contact us on the J forum and we will get you an invitation to the next J wiki meeting held on Thursdays at 23:00 (UTC)
Present: Ed Gottsman, Raul Miller, Devon McCormick and Bob Therriault
Full transcripts of this meeting are now available on the its wiki page. https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Wiki/Report_of_Meeting_2024-08-08
1) Bob mentioned that Chris had contacted him with instructions to log in to the wiki. Raul was able to log in and get the log files on their way to Ed to be interpreted.
2) Bob will only be available for two J wiki meetings until November. The next two weeks Bob will be involved with Iverson College, so the next meeting will be August 29th. After that Bob will be going to Italy for 6 weeks.
3) Ed will take the information that Raul has given him and create a bar chart of the most visited pages. Bob says this might be useful when we move on to the new format to evaluate the change in behaviour on user page visits.
A general discussion then began.
4) Ed would like to work on creating conversations in the J community and the most common are the J forums. The forums may be a good place to increase the traffic. Devon pointed out that the forum represents people that are already interested in J and that outreach may be a better approach. The recent NYCJUG had a few people who were already on the APLfarm https://aplwiki.com/wiki/APL_Farm which is a discord channel with a lot of array language enthusiasts. The ArrayCast podcast https://www.arraycast.com/episodes also generates interest in the wider community. Ed thinks that the cross fertilization of the different languages could be an effective way to widen the J community. Raul mentioned that there are also communities on Rosetta Code https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code and Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/apljk/. Devon mentioned that he had recently given a talk at a Hacker Conference that was outreach. Devon points out that Array languages are often used in finance and that is not a sharing venue. Ed feels that J is most often used for Math, even though it is promoted as a general purpose programming language.
5) Devon mentioned the post by Hillel Wayne about 'Toolbox languages' https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/toolbox-languages/ and Ed feels that you don't want to get pigeon holed that way if the language is general purpose. Devon thinks that logistics may be an area of growth for the array languages. Bob included a link to a Mark Guzdial article https://computinged.wordpress.com/2024/08/05/all-the-reasons-for-liberal-arts-and-sciences-majors-to-learn-to-program-ais-not-really-that-big-a-deal/ that says that there is a necessity to understand computing even when you are using and LLM for programming.
6) Bob hoped to give a talk at Iverson College about what the most appropriate audience for J might be. Bob felt that the primary grades represent the most opportunity, but it was hard to get into the curriculum. Devon and Ed said that they had been unable to interest their kids. Raul observed that it is difficult to turn J into a Christmas gift.
7) Ed wondered if there is an opportunity in domains that have not yet adopted computing. Finance is an area where the users wanted to incorporate formulas in their work and APL was more accessible to subject matter experts. The upcoming episode of the ArrayCast has Paul Teetor, an R programmer who says that the area of statistics and graphics are the primary domains of R. https://www.arraycast.com/episodes/episode86-paulteetor There was also an article by Ryan Hamilton about how KX had been out-maneuvered by open source alternatives. https://www.timestored.com/b/the-future-of-kdb/
8) Large Language Models (LLMS) may have trouble with array languages because they are terse and the amount of programming that is done is relatively small. Ed thinks that there may be a 'business analyst' role for LLM's to ensure that the result make sense in the real world. Testing is another area that humans may be required to develop appropriate unit tests to ensure that LLM's are working properly. Any language could be used for this purpose. Bob wondered if the array languages are better for probing the models which are big linear algebra problems. Raul thinks that is similar to incorporating ArrayFire into J. Raul says if there is an opportunity in anticipating the next big thing in computing. Perhaps LLM's could be turned on themselves to look at their constructs to make more appropriate naming in their foundational programs. Ed mentioned that star programmers are not helped by LLM's as much as the lesser programmers. J may be a better language for pioneer programmers. J is also a very good prototyping language.
For access to previous meeting reports https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Wiki_Development If you would like to participate in the development of the J wiki please contact us on the J forum and we will get you an invitation to the next J wiki meeting held on Thursdays at 23:00 (UTC)
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