As Don states, the most important feature of rank is that it allows the elimination of most looping constructs. To me this is a big deal. To make the article more genrally relevant, it needs to show various common looping constructs used by other languages, and how they are eliminated by the use of rank. I'm not very familliar with languages other than APL & J, so I'm not able to provide examples of loops in C or Python, etc, that vanish by using rank in J. If we want to expose J's unique advantages to a wider audience, improving this Wikipedia article would be a good step in that direction.
Skip Skip Cave Cave Consulting LLC On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 4:57 PM Don Guinn <[email protected]> wrote: > One point not clearly shown is that almost all loop constructs can be > eliminated by the use of rank working with modifiers. A point most non-J > readers will miss. > > On Fri, Jul 6, 2018, 3:16 PM Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > > > So... it looks like someone wants to delete the > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rank_(J_programming_language) page. > > > > Personally, I think it describes a concept of general interest to the > > programming community, with J being an illustrative (and perhaps > > canonical) example. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-expression > > page is similar in character (but has a lot more traction - far more > > people have spent time talking about it). But, looking at the talk > > page, it seem that that's not a viewpoint that has gotten any > > significant foothold. > > > > Oh well... > > > > -- > > Raul > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
