Thanks Harvey,

Something had bothered me about moving the right argument over the left, but I 
couldn't put my finger on it. The data/control relationship between x and y may 
have been part of it. I would guess that this would mean the moving the right 
argument in the 'reverse' cases of Divide (%), Minus (-), Sort (/:)(\:) etc. 
There are so many useful ideas that turn up as we stumble along this road!

Cheers, bob

On -Mar20-2010, at -Mar20-20109:20 PM, PackRat wrote:

> bob therriault wrote:  
>> I have a few questions about the covering the numbers. Does it make
>> a difference to you which argument is placed on top when the scalar
>> arguments are superimposed?
> 
> Well, when I was first starting to learn J here, I was under the 
> impression from various posts on the Programming Forum that "y" (the 
> right argument) was USUALLY (not always!) the main data that was 
> operated upon (or controlled) by "x" (the left argument).  (I may be 
> all wet with this understanding, but I interpreted that to be what the 
> experts and gurus here indicated--and that's what I shared with others 
> as I tried to proselytize J before I retired from librarianship.)
> 
> So, *if* one set of data should remain stationary while the other 
> moves, it makes sense to me that the righthand data should remain 
> stationary and that the lefthand data should move (or go on top of the 
> righthand data).  This would be especially useful, I think, with 
> primitives like # (copy), using a boolean left argument and a literal 
> (or numeric) right argument.
> 
>> I am also considering dissolving in the result as the numbers collide
>> (with a glow to indicate the operation). 
> 
> That's essentially what I've been thinking of suggesting (you beat me 
> to it!) and seems very effective to me as a former teacher and somewhat 
> J newbie!
> 
> Harvey
> 
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