J is fun when you're just starting. Hey, you can take the average of a list of numbers with four characters of code!
When you go from that to writing a minimal CMS, things are less fun (actual assignment from a professor who loved J).
When you go from that to writing a minimal CMS, things are less fun (actual assignment from a professor who loved J).
The cognitive cost of writing the same program in J versus your current favorite functional language (let's assume Scheme) is basically the same. The J version will be much more concise, and probably quicker to write.
But I found it much harder to review and extend my own J code. Where the Scheme program I wrote last month will be mostly self-documenting and easy to modify, the equivalent J program may as well be machine code.
I feel like I _should_ appreciate J more, because it is powerful, but it may be too concise for me to be comfortable with.
-survived the same class (Hi Ryan!)
The intro sequence for majors also includes Scala so students there get a pretty good basis in FP.
They'll probably rewrite the CS department site eventually, but until then, it's a repository of all the information about J you can handle.
So naturally no one is willing to touch it.