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Add to SafariWhen comparing J vs Java, the Slant community recommends J for most people. In the question“What is the best programming language to learn first?” J is ranked 47th while Java is ranked 56th. The most important reason people chose J is:
3 classes of operators (verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions) with verbs the most basic function that take either 1 or 2 (infix) parameters. Operators allow function composition with a minimum of parentheses.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Every function is an operator
3 classes of operators (verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions) with verbs the most basic function that take either 1 or 2 (infix) parameters. Operators allow function composition with a minimum of parentheses.
Pro Simpler Imperative language constructs as failback to functional programming
J also supports multiline functional definitions similar to BASIC/Pascal. Including error handling.
Pro Compiled language speed from interpreted language.
Each built in operator is a C/asm function, and special code further optimizes some operator combinations. Result is optimized C speed from quick parsing. Array orientation parses and compiles a function once, and applies it to all array items.
Pro 25 year old language, with core unchanged in last 10 years
Still actively developed, but most recent changes have been in libraries and IDE and platform support.
Language is considered "perfected"... though not quite.
Pro Language reference has simple one page index
Complete core programming functional tools allow writting programs and libraries without imports.
Pro No operator precedence rules
(... within each of the 3 operator classes) makes reading code easier. Very simple parsing rules.
Pro Verbosity
It makes it easy to debug and to read code.
Pro Mature ecosystem
The language and all its tools have enough time to age and they've aged well.
Pro Type-safe
It is easier to catch errors sooner.
Cons
Con Syntax is pure madness
quicksort=: (($:@(<#[), (=#[), $:@(>#[)) ({~ ?@#)) ^: (1<#)
Con Memory hungry
Running the virtual machine, application server and application itself consumes significant amount of resources.
Con Unnecessarily obtuse and verbose
If you like typing 40 lines of code to open a file, Java is the language for you. If, on the other hand, you’d actually like to get something done, look elsewhere.
Con Oracle
Enough said.
In more detail: Oracle has acquired Java from Sun and continues to surround it with controversy ever since (legendary lawsuit with google, money extortion from the enterprise users etc.).
