AoC retrospective analysis that radiates piercing insight

2 files changed, 8 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/community/aoc.md b/community/aoc.md
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@@ -97,4 +97,8 @@ line ← (/≠¨⊏xy) ⊔ FmtNum ⍉> dim×Scale pts
 
 The BQN counts fall off much less than the average. Most likely this is because programmers who decide to try AoC in a crazy new language like BQN tend to be more committed to the task, but BQN also has to meet some minimum bar to enable these crazy people to continue.
 
-Just how okay is BQN? Further discussion to come.
+Just how okay is BQN? Hannu makes a case for optimism in [this blog post](https://hannuhartikainen.fi/blog/advent-of-bqn/). Hannu writes that BQN's slogan "might be the best [further glowing praise/context]", in stark contrast to that time [Bryce and Conor agreed](https://adspthepodcast.com/2021/12/17/Episode-56.html) that it was a bad slogan. And Andrey offers [suspiciously positive comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29521264) as well. The list includes "good text editor support", but Johnny remarked on the forums that he didn't manage a good editor/REPL setup—a second contradiction, meaning that I can now prove the Riemann hypothesis in *two* independent ways. Johnny also cited little support for string handling and low-information error messages as obstacles. I like that these aren't tied to the core language, and can eventually be improved, even though it won't be easy. dzaima complained about frequent confusion between functions and immediate blocks, and right-to-left folds being the much less useful direction. I dislike that dzaima is right a lot.
+
+All three non-dzaimas of the last paragraph are essentially array outsiders, with little or no experience with languages like J or APL. In fact I think this describes the majority of Adventurers in BQN (although the list also includes array junkies like Raghu and Leah, and they've predictably made it further than most participants). Reaching out to a general programming audience wasn't initially a goal of BQN because I didn't think it *was* within reach. I realized this was wrong, and began to adjust course, in the early days, but am pleased to continue getting even more wrong.
+
+With all this said, a handful of reports about recreational programming is a pretty poor basis for judging a programming language. Advent of Code was more useful as a checkup on BQN and its environment, resulting in fixes to documentation and implementation. And dzaima improved various aspects of performance as a way to cheat in speed battles with ngn/k.
diff --git a/docs/community/aoc.html b/docs/community/aoc.html
index d469f273..90e30f3b 100644
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 </svg>
 
 <p>The BQN counts fall off much less than the average. Most likely this is because programmers who decide to try AoC in a crazy new language like BQN tend to be more committed to the task, but BQN also has to meet some minimum bar to enable these crazy people to continue.</p>
-<p>Just how okay is BQN? Further discussion to come.</p>
+<p>Just how okay is BQN? Hannu makes a case for optimism in <a href="https://hannuhartikainen.fi/blog/advent-of-bqn/">this blog post</a>. Hannu writes that BQN's slogan &quot;might be the best [further glowing praise/context]&quot;, in stark contrast to that time <a href="https://adspthepodcast.com/2021/12/17/Episode-56.html">Bryce and Conor agreed</a> that it was a bad slogan. And Andrey offers <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29521264">suspiciously positive comments</a> as well. The list includes &quot;good text editor support&quot;, but Johnny remarked on the forums that he didn't manage a good editor/REPL setup—a second contradiction, meaning that I can now prove the Riemann hypothesis in <em>two</em> independent ways. Johnny also cited little support for string handling and low-information error messages as obstacles. I like that these aren't tied to the core language, and can eventually be improved, even though it won't be easy. dzaima complained about frequent confusion between functions and immediate blocks, and right-to-left folds being the much less useful direction. I dislike that dzaima is right a lot.</p>
+<p>All three non-dzaimas of the last paragraph are essentially array outsiders, with little or no experience with languages like J or APL. In fact I think this describes the majority of Adventurers in BQN (although the list also includes array junkies like Raghu and Leah, and they've predictably made it further than most participants). Reaching out to a general programming audience wasn't initially a goal of BQN because I didn't think it <em>was</em> within reach. I realized this was wrong, and began to adjust course, in the early days, but am pleased to continue getting even more wrong.</p>
+<p>With all this said, a handful of reports about recreational programming is a pretty poor basis for judging a programming language. Advent of Code was more useful as a checkup on BQN and its environment, resulting in fixes to documentation and implementation. And dzaima improved various aspects of performance as a way to cheat in speed battles with ngn/k.</p>