Hrm. Let's step back for a moment. Your responses read to me as defensive and it is not my intent at all to attack your position. If you do not want to deal wi

Hrm. Let's step back for a moment. Your responses read to me as defensive and it is not my intent at all to attack your position. If you do not want to deal with APL/J/K, that's perfectly fine. Your interests and goals are very likely different than mine. All I wish to communicate is my experience, "Hey, this language seems really weird and counterintitive and completely non-sensical on the suraface, but I spent some time actually learning it and it turns out that these first impressions were wrong!" You know how modern mathematical notation is really compact compared to the "more readable" prose that used to be used in the past? The funny part is that the prose is a lot harder to parse than the modern notation, provided you already know the latter. APL/J/K is a lot like executable math notation in that way. What about you? Is there some core point you are trying to get across that I/we seem to be missing? > I see; it's okay for you to use the English language with sentences involving cobble and coddle... So my answer is that, yes, my analogy with English is relevant, because it attempts to communicate to you what it feels like to read unfamiliar J code in practice. Your analogy with C is making a different point, that opaque identifiers with similar spellings and similar contexts are confusable. I agree.