However, I found the programs being discussed in the J discussion lists completely impenetrable. I would argue that (a big) part of the issue is that proponent

However, I found the programs being discussed in the J discussion lists completely impenetrable. I would argue that (a big) part of the issue is that proponents often overstate the readability of such code. My usual experience from the J mailing list is that people "read" code by looking at the prose description of what it does, puzzling through how they would do that themselves, and then looking for common structure between the original code and their own reimplementation. It's a good learning experience as far as solving that particular problem is concerned (as there's often more than one way to do it), though it definitely runs counter to the meme that comments and meaningful names are superfluous. The other usual excuse that "the alphabet just isn't the one you're familiar with" isn't really true of mailing list regulars.