For those curious there used to be 迴文詩 in Chinese culture rooting from about
300, DC, a poem that you can read in more than one direction.
See:
http://content.edu.tw/senior/chinese/ks_rs/content/chinese/poem/happy/circle.htm
emptist wrote:
>
> Hi, Alan,
>
> Programming language interpretor you suggested sounds very interesting
> though I not that ambitious myself :) I am trying to give J body a Chinese
> dress so it looks much more in home to me and I can write as I think.
>
> The topic is interesting so I'd nag a little more on it.
> Chinese language has many features that are forgotten or ruined, as well
> as the culture it carries, in particular the last 60 years that will harm
> generations of people forever.
> In fact local students nowadays would spend 10 times or much of time in
> learning English than Chinese, for no reason since they turn out to not
> use it any way. In the meantime, Chinese literature teachers in China
> seldom have read through 說文解字 so they cannot even understand the meaning
> of Characters they write everyday not to say teach their students about
> anything that generates from the reality of the language.
> One may know, that sometime ago, Chinese text is read from right to left
> just as J does, and when I'm coding in Chinese I'm find it amusing to read
> my code in Chinese Character from right to left.
>
> In my tiny scaled example above, I have something like: 均增首行, which means
> fetch the first somewhat add one to it then calculate the average, now how
> about reading it as 行首增均? I intend to use a terse style that similar to
> ancient Chinese poem here, and 行 is not needed at all so the real code is
> just 均增首(=首增均, from right to left), which one can also use 取均數 加一 取首
> which is ugly to me but still is fun to read from right to left.
> This is only one of those interesting things. I would post more if only I
> have enough time.
>
> A famous ancient master of Zen would always say the same two words to
> every visitors to him, 'drink tea', he would say. That means much. One of
> them may be 'taste it, the truth is within you'.
>
>
>
>
> Alan K. Stebbens wrote:
>>
>>
>>> It's very late into night here in East of the Earth. I'd answer
>>> shortly.
>>
>> Jim,
>>
>> I appreciate your reply, and better understand some of your motivation.
>>
>> I see some value in applying your ideas to create "wizards" that will
>> help practitioners of other computer languages to learn J. For
>> example, taking the most common idioms from other languages and
>> providing a semi-automatic translator, it may be possible to help
>> transition curious programmers of other languages into the World of J?
>>
>> As you did with Smalltalk, perhaps a good excuse for better learning J
>> might be to write a J program for converting idioms from popular
>> languages (eg: ruby, python, C) might be useful?
>>
>> eg: (Ruby idioms -> J)
>>
>> where v is a vector, s, s1, s2 are strings, n, n1, n2 and l are
>> numbers, and e is an arbitrary type element.
>>
>> Ruby J
>> v.map{|e| f(e)} --> f v
>>
>> s1+s2 --> s1,s2
>> s1<<s2 --> s1=.s1,s2
>> s[n] --> n{s
>> s[n1..n2] --> (n1+i.>:n2-n1){s
>> s[n, l] --> (n+i.l){s
>>
>> etc.
>>
>> This might help convert entire methods into functionally equivalent J
>> code.
>>
>> Of course, J is sufficiently different that this won't work for large
>> bodies of code -- only small, relatively simple algorithms. But, it
>> might be interesting to see what such a translator spits out for
>> increasingly larger code fragments.
>>
>> Kind of a bottom-up translator.
>>
>>> While your concern reads reasonable to me, and some authors of
>>> Smalltalk
>>> dialects such as Smalltalk/X even not permit any code except ascii
>>> ones,
>>> there is some goodness in trying to programming natively and then
>>> define
>>> language alias for cross culture interexchange. That is men do it
>>> natively,
>>> machines do the translation.
>>> Have those said, however, I'm fond of native J code since they do
>>> not depend
>>> on any Human Language.
>>> So in time I'll be coding directly in J while I getting more
>>> confidence.
>>> Though, I may also find it even more interesting coding in Chinese,
>>> which
>>> unfortunately is less understandable to other people. Since Chinese
>>> tastes
>>> differently. Translate the code into J is fundamental since
>>> otherwise the
>>> code won't run so there can be any damage to others as I could see.
>>> You may
>>> think I would better write code comment in English, yes, and the
>>> Chinese
>>> comments in my example is just for show the translator features. And
>>> if any
>>> code would go under a public license, I agree English still is the
>>> choice
>>> today.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, most local people who can afford to go to school
>>> often
>>> spend life time learning English but never get it done here in
>>> China. I
>>> think that could be a huge waste of time. I myself love different
>>> cultures
>>> and learned Japanese, English and Esperanto when I was young. Now I'm
>>> finding myself reading more and write less in foreign languages if
>>> ever and
>>> most other local Chinese people will never speak a single word after
>>> years
>>> of very hard learning.
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>>>
>>> Alan K. Stebbens wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Emptist,
>>>>
>>>> I'm glad that you are satisfying your need to an easier path to
>>>> productivity in your native language.
>>>>
>>>> If this is your only requirement, then on that basis, your work is
>>>> fine, and I'm guessing that you are sharing because you think there
>>>> are others who need to read (and think) in Chinese in order to write
>>>> and use J?
>>>>
>>>> While your work is admirable from a purely technical point of view,
>>>> it's actually a step backwards in part of the broader view of what
>>>> programming is about: sharing algorithms.
>>>>
>>>> IMHO, there are two reasons to write readable programs -- to help you
>>>> get things done more easily later, or to help others get things done
>>>> later.
>>>>
>>>> If your sole concern is yourself, or those few people who read
>>>> Chinese
>>>> AND can read and parse J, then perhaps this work is useful.
>>>>
>>>> If you have any concern for others being able to read and understand
>>>> your algorithms, as you have expressed them, then it really becomes
>>>> important to use a common language -- that of J expressed in ASCII.
>>>>
>>>> J is hard enough to parse, even for J-ers, and comprehend, as it is
>>>> in
>>>> ASCII. But it becomes even more obscure for much of the world if you
>>>> write J in Chinese.
>>>>
>>>> If you contribute an interesting algorithm and it is written in J/
>>>> ASCII then more people will be able to read, comprehend, appreciate,
>>>> and perhaps use that algorithm than if you write it in J/Chinese.
>>>>
>>>> I realize that the number of people speaking Chinese in the world
>>>> is a
>>>> very, very large number, but it is not quite the international
>>>> language that English currently is. Of course, this may change, and
>>>> perhaps someday, my descendants may be speaking one of the Chinese
>>>> dialects, and perhaps writing the common Chinese language. But,
>>>> until that day arrives, if you have any belief that your algorithms
>>>> have a life of utility for others, then you should reconsider
>>>> expressing them in Chinese -- unless you do not care if they are ever
>>>> useful to others.
>>>>
>>>> Alan
>>>>
>>>> PS: Just so you don't think that I do not appreciate other human
>>>> languages, I have studied and speak with varying degrees of fluency
>>>> Spanish, Russian, and Japanese. I even studied a semester of Chinese
>>>> to better learn the origins of Japanese kanji.
>>>>
>>>> para mí, el lenguaje es una ventana a la cultura
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sep 14, 2009, at 8:48 AM, emptist wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> Those are defined in a class instance viriable as dictionary named
>>>>> 字
>>>>> 典, which
>>>>> will ask for exact J translation when a word is absent and then add
>>>>> the one
>>>>> from user answer.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now as to 首行 and 末列, those are splitted first and then each
>>>>> try to find
>>>>> itself in dictionary.
>>>>> I'm using the following entries to define (might be on fly):
>>>>>
>>>>> 行
>>>>> 加一 >:
>>>>> 列 "1
>>>>> 首 {.
>>>>> 末 {:
>>>>> 試讀四八數據檔 _8]\ _2(3!:4) 1!:1
>>>>> 均 (+/%#)
>>>>> 求均 +/%#
>>>>> 增 >:
>>>>> : :
>>>>> = =
>>>>>
>>>>> so, 行 is in fact a empty string, as you've guessed it.
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>>>>
>>>
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>>>
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>>
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>
>
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