I concur Skip, A 'Read This First' page is essential if we wish to clarify the concepts each primitive presents. I look forward to seeing what you produce. Some of the NuVoc animations will find a place there as well I imagine. That type of redundancy is beneficial.
Cheers, bob On -Feb24-2010, at -Feb24-20105:48 AM, Skip Cave wrote: > That was my thought also, 0j1. The videos probably don't need to show > the matrix creation, since that isn't what the video is demonstrating. > > However, every NuVoc page description has that same issue. How do you > show matrix addition, without showing how to create the matrices in the > first place? For that matter, what makes up a J symbol? > > That is the primary difficulty with a random-access reference/tutorial. > How can you make every NuVoc page provide enough information so that it > can be the first page that a novice sees, and still provide all the > information they need to understand the specific symbol that they are > looking up? Putting start-up information on every NuVoc page tends to > make for lots of redundancy. Hyperlinking can take care of some of the > page clutter, but there will still be much redundancy on every NuVoc page. > > We could take the same approach as the video, leaving out the actual > matrix creation and assignment on the NuVoc pages. However, that makes > it difficult for a new reader to replicate the steps on the NuVoc > descriptions, and leaves a newbie asking more questions than the page > answers. > > Assignment and matrix creation are only part of the problem, however. > There are several more concepts that a newbie should know to read any > page in the NuVoc reference. one-and two character symbols, assignment, > monadic/dyadic, parts-of-speech, matrix creation, etc. are all things > that every newbie should know, before jumping into the NuVoc pages. > > I think we have two main approaches to making every NuVoc description > page accessible to the newbie. > > One approach is to have a "Read This First" page that all newbies would > see before they start into the NuVoc reference. This page would have to > be structured so that it would be presented to every newbie before > entering the NuVoc definition pages. > > The "Read me First" page could explain the basics such as the > one-or-two-character symbols, monadic and dyadic usages, > parts-of-speech, assignment, and perhaps some basic matrix creation. It > could even pre-define several global variables such as w, x, y, and z > which would then be used throughout the NuVoc definitions pages. In this > way, we wouldn't have to show the initial matrix creation on every NuVoc > page, or explain monadic, or verbs, etc. Each NuVoc page would be > written with the assumption that the reader has already read the "Read > This First" page. In this way, there would be a basic set of knowledge > that would be assumed for the NuVoc page reader. > > An alternate approach would be to show the matrix creation and other > concepts in each NuVoc page code, but hyperlink the various symbols (=. > $ i.) to their appropriate NuVoc pages, with some appropriate comments > (like "create a 3 x3 matrix and assign it to x" ) . In that way, the > newbie user can click on the hyperlink to see what the symbol does. > > The more I think about it, the more I like the "Read Me First" page. It > allows us to avoid lots of redundancy on each NuVoc description page, > yet provides the novice with a jumpstart before entering the NuVoc > pages. I think I will try to write such a page, to see how it goes. > . > Skip Cave > . > 0j1 wrote: >> You could show the J code using variables such as x and y, and display the >> values of x and y graphically without showing how they were created. >> >> bob therriault wrote: >> >>> Hi Skip, >>> The challenge I faced with showing the J code for these reference videos was >>> how to create a matrix without introducing either the Shape ($) or Integer >>> (i.) verbs into the explanation (which increases both the duration and the >>> cognitive loading). For the tutorial approach, I think the 'coding window' >>> is >>> essential, but not so much for the reference. Any ideas on how I can get >>> the >>> 'code' back into the reference video efficiently would be welcome. >>> Cheers, bob >>> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> 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
