> From: bill lam > > On Fri, 01 May 2009, Sherlock Ric wrote: > > To add to a) - I had been happily using J for ~18 months before I > > finally had my "Aha" moment and tacit J clicked enough that I could > > use it with confidence. At that time I added a couple of pages to > > the Wiki to try and address the issues I thought might have helped > > me get to that point earlier. > > <http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Guides/Defining Verbs> > > <http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Guides/Reading Tacit Verbs> > > I want to comment how the read the train > [ {~ [: ? ] $ [: # [ > > there are 9 (odd number) verbs so the last train is a fork. However > the J dictionary said an J expression is to be read (aloud) from left > to right, eg. 1 * 2 + 3 is read as > multiply 1 to the result of 2 plus 3 > rather than from right to left > 2 plus 3 and then multiply the result to 1 > > by the same token, execution of the above tacit form should be read as > (fork) > x {~ result of (cap-fork) > ? result of (fork) > y $ result of (cap-fork) > # x > that is > x {~ ? y $ # x
This is a nice way of looking at it too. It would be a useful additional section of the Reading Tacit Verbs page - different explanations will resonate best with different users. If the dictionary page you are referring to is <http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/dicte.htm> then my impression is that the statement is rather less prescriptive about the way to read sentences: "can therefore be read ..." rather than "is to be read ...". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
