I did otherwise when interested in the APL/J/K world: the ASCII use of J scared me and I decided to learn some APL first and then, go through J's ASCIIness (I'm still early in the APL part, though.) I find APLs symbols nice and terse, for some of the basic things it's like learning a good editor's shortcuts (be it emacs or vi[m].) You no longer think about how to do X, but what you want to achieve and your hands do it. Of course, I guess with J it's exactly the same once you know enough of it, I just took the other route.