On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 11:47 AM, mijj <[email protected]> wrote: > i don't think reading reading (for top down) as L->R is easier to read > than (for top down) L<-R .. it's just a matter of which way we cast our > eyes. There only seems to be an easier direction because of habit.
Yes, some languages use left to right. English is not one of them. That is probably what prompted you to ask: .. plus .. while on the subject of direction .. why was APL thus J direction of evaluation set to be right to left? .. wouldn't it'd be more natural as left to right? (ie. the same direction as writing, or the direction which represents the progression of time) Except, of course, in english, left to right does not represent the progression of time. For example: "Please fill that bucket with water from that well." A traditional english sentence structure is: subject verb object. > + haven't you thought that it's inconsistent when you have: > expr1 > expr2 > expr3 > evaluate in order .. but when you decide to bring them onto one line in > the natural way with simple backdelete: > expr1 [expr2 > expr > then > expr1 [expr2 [expr3 > suddenly the order of evaluation is reversed? I used to be annoyed by this, yes. But nowadays I have gotten over that, and I have no problems copying and pasting the structures I need. > re: creating a text editor that enters text L<-R .. i think it'd be > easier to create a string with the expression typed in as a natural > L->R, then reverse the string to evaluate it (thanks to J using single > char vocab). > eg: > d =. 3 4 5 6 > ". |. 'd/+|9=0' > NB. 1 That, of course, is another option, though you would need to reverse token order and not character order within tokens. -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
