You can definitely build similar aliases in J - simply writing 'add =: +' will get you so far, but the right to left execution order confounds attempts to make truely human readable sentences, where left-to-right order is used.
As for programming style - I tend to use single human readable words for my verbs, like 'plot,' 'deriv,' or 'convolve.' My nouns tend to be single characters, with comments for expected contents. I'm also new to J - I've built a set of training wheels at https://github.com/itdaniher/JNotebook/blob/master/handlebars.ijs; most scripts I write tend to require 'handlebars.ijs'. Best! -- Ian P.S. as for porting J to other languages, I've spent some time looking at the structure of libj. Check out http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/iojNoun and http://www.jsoftware.com/help/user/calling_jdll.htm for help writing FFI bindings *to* J. On Sat, Jul 20, 2013 at 9:29 PM, Tobia Conforto <[email protected]>wrote: > Hello > > I'm a J newbie, still going through the introductory material. It's a > great language and I'm having a lot of fun learning it! But I cannot help > comparing it to other languages I know. > > I find its features very interesting, especially its handling of rank, but > at the same time I find its syntax very hard to read, compared to > "ordinary" languages. > > After thinking about it a bit, I'm quite sure the reason is because you > cannot make out the structure of a J sentence unless you know exactly which > tokens are verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions, and even then it takes some > mental work to put it all together. Otherwise it remains a flat list of > symbols. In this regard it's not dissimilar from Assembly, where the entire > code is a flat list of opcodes, unless you know how to see the structure in > jumps and calls, and then apply yourself to the task. Maybe I'm wrong, but > this does not strike me as a good thing. > > This, coupled with J's terse syntax (seriously… at least APL had some > pretty symbols) made me wonder how much of its flexibility is dependent on > its syntax; or conversely, how much of it could be ported to a different > language with more static syntax rules, in the form of a library. I'm not > thinking especially of Lisp, where you can build your own syntax, thus > incurring in the same readability issues as J (as I see it.) > > Has anybody tried to port J's features to other languages? How did it go? > > Here is a tiny proof of concept, porting a couple of things (fork, adverb) > over to CoffeeScript, in a very basic manner: > > > div = (x, y) -> x/y > add = (x, y) -> x+y > tally = (y) -> y.length > insert = (v) -> (y) -> y.reduce v > fork = (a, f, b) -> (y) -> f (a y), (b y) > integers = (y) -> [0..y-1] > > console.log (fork (insert add), div, tally) integers 10 # prints > 4.5 > > > As I said, this is very basic. It lacks everything, including rank and > arrays. It's just a few lines I put together to reason about syntax. Out of > the few languages I know, I chose CoffeeScript for this exercise mainly for > its un-parenthesized function application. > > What are your thoughts? > > > PS. I know much of J's power comes from its engine and its optimized array > operations. This post is strictly about syntax, or rather *opinions* about > syntax :-) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
