Another drawback of symbols, which applies also to J symbols, is the difficulty of alphabetizing them. In the case of J, this is mitigated by fitting the entire vocabulary onto one page and organizing the symbols in a sensible, albeit intuitive, order.
Of course, the flip side of this is that while keywords can be alphabetized, different people will choose different names for the same function. I'm dealing with a "formula builder" at work where there's a complex-looking function called "decode". On inspection, it turns out this is Oracle-speak for a "case" statement expressed in "f()" functional format. On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 10:08 AM, Tracy Harms <[email protected]> wrote: > On the topic of using non-ASCII characters to name functions, here's a > blog post that shows it being done in PowerShell: > > http://keithhill.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!5A8D2641E0963A97!6944.entry<http://keithhill.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns%215A8D2641E0963A97%216944.entry> > > I'm not urging this as the direction to turn, I'm just communicating > an instance where we see it occurring. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Devon McCormick, CFA ^me^ at acm. org is my preferred e-mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
