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J is both a language and an exceptional programming package which provides a highly concise notation for specifying much that is done routinely in the day to day business of computing, such as sorting, searching, updating and restructuring data. Its inventor and designer is Dr. K.E. Iverson, who also devised the language APL, out of which J developed. The first J interpreters appeared around 1990, since when the language has grown in popularity and application, particularly in the world of finance, where its conciseness and power for rapid algorithm development is highly valued. Amazingly, this algorithm-rich software is available free by download from
a download which takes only a few minutes, following which installation is easy.
J also has many enthusiasts in education, where it can be a powerful motivator on account of the clarity with which users can express their intentions on a computer.
The objective of this tutorial is to give a brief introduction which will either encourage the user to perform the above download and discover that the claims which are made on this page are in no way understated, or, if the download has already been performed, encourage him or her to take the first steps up the J learning ladder into a world of discovery and delight. It is impossible in a pamphlet of this size to cover anything other than a tiny part of the facilities which J affords. However, that need be no disadvantage, since the J system is fully self-describing through a comprehensive Help facility, through Labs (that is prepared sessions) which can be invoked by the Studio drop down menu, and through libraries of scripts and packages which encapsulate the work of many previous users. Once the topics in this tutorial have been grasped, the user should find little difficulty in extending his or her knowledge both by exploiting the help features listed above and by direct exploration on the keyboard. Further, the J language is totally consistent across all the many platforms on which it is now available, and a vigorous Internet forum (forum@ jsoftware.com) is perhaps the best support mechanism of all.
