> APL/360 has extraordinarily simple parsing rules. APL\360 parsing rules are more complex than J parsing rules and are far from extraordinarily simple. Try defining parse rules that accommodate or disallow:
a←3 4;b←'abc';a←12 (a←5)×1+a c[c←2;c←4 5 6⍴⍳3;c←3] +/[1] a a∘.+b (What is the ∘?) sum←+/ ∇ z←sum y Of course, simple parsing rules are not everything. Disallowing infix notation would simplify parsing but I would prefer a×b+c over (× a (+ b c)). ----- Original Message ----- From: David Ward Lambert <[email protected]> Date: Friday, July 23, 2010 9:24 Subject: Re: [Jchat] J as a programming language for beginners? To: [email protected] > Does j meet Borud's requirements? > > * It has to be a "real" > language. As in: a language that is > actually used by a > significant number of people in paid jobs. > > I'd like to know of (particularly > science) jobs with j, please. > > * No oddball or perversely domain- > specific languages. > > Do j's ()'s make it an oddball > computer language? > > lisp: > symbol expands symbol. > (symbol) evaluates symbol > > All other computer languages of > which I'm aware: > > () changes order of operation per elementary > algebra. > j () > changes order of operation per generalized college math. > > > Parsing j compared with other > languages? > APL/360 has extraordinarily > simple parsing rules. > > RPN, forth, postscript stack > based languages are common and > simple. > > I'd place j's rules---while still > simple---as a little more > difficult and numerous than these. On the one hand, j parses > differently from other main stream computer languages (the interpreter > requires part-of-speech, context, and rank), making j oddball among > computer languages. On the other hand, j is deliberately > similar to > spoken languages. There being far more speakers than > programmers, I > conclude therefor that all the other computer languages are the > oddballs. > > > > > Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:30:50 -0500 > > From: "PackRat" <[email protected]> > > Subject: [Jchat] J as a programming language for beginners? > > To: Chat forum <[email protected]> > > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > > > Came across this on another list. J seems to fit the bill: > > > > http://blog.borud.no/2010/07/programming-languages-for- > beginners.html> > > What do you think? > > > > > > Harvey ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
