> From: Alan K. Stebbens
> Sent: Wednesday, 29 April 2009 08:26
> 
> Don, Ric, Skip, Fraser, Raul, et. al.,
> 
> If I had to toss out an idea (which has probably been done before),
> here's one for the IDE: a "verbose transcription" mode?
> 
> Perhaps having a display mode in the J IDE which presents symbolic
> verbs using spelled-out names (with spacing of course) might help?  If
> this "verbose mode" existed in the IDE, then a J learner could open
> any J script, and upon rendering in "verbose transcript" mode and
> easily decipher the meanings.  Of course, with the correct library of
> operator name definitions, the J learner could also write complex J
> sentences and scripts using either words or symbols.  When saving to a
> file, the "verbose transcription" mode would translate (where
> possible) the symbolic names into their normal J symbolic equivalents.

Fraser Jackson used the primitives script in one of his examples in the 
Language S thread. 
<http://www.jsoftware.com/pipermail/chat/2009-April/001643.html>. He showed 
that it was possible to use names from the script in combination with normal J 
symbols.

The script contains quite a bit of documentation, to view it type the following 
in a J session:
  open 'primitives'

The script describes how to translate the named definitions in the script to J 
symbols (primitives).
Going back the other way (from primitives to names) will be more difficult 
because often the correct name to use for a symbol (the monadic or dyadic one) 
will depend on the arguments provided when the sentence is run. Nevertheless 
the script mentions the wiki page <http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Primitives to 
Mnemonics> that attempts to do just that. 


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