Thanks for pointing that out. If I understand correctly, — @: is defined in terms of @ in the original Voc., and — @ defines itself by reference to its contrast with @:
The reader is expected to deduce that "ranks are [not] infinite" for @, and so finite. They then deduce that the ranks of the resulting verb are finite, and that the resulting verb is (somehow) uniquely determined by the above. Perhaps that is sufficient. To me, it's very opaque; but I am far from the only person such documentation is intended to serve. It seems others are not keen to alter (for better or worse) the original Vocabulary. While I don't understand this position, I accept that J has a long historical context and that many others are better placed to understand the needs of its users. Thanks to everyone for explaining the situation. — Matt On 3 Jan 2016 4:09 pm, "bill lam" <[email protected]> wrote: > The last sentence is > > Compare the behaviour of @ with that of @: . They differ only in > the ranks of the verbs that they produce. > > and in the definiion for @: it said > > @: is equivalent to @ except that ranks are infinite. > > AFAIK the wordings for definitions of @ and @: remained more or less > the same ever since 1993. > > Вс, 03 янв 2016, Matthew Baulch написал(а): > > http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Vocabulary/at mentions this rank situation, > > as Henry pointed out. > > > > http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/d620.htm does not appear to. > > The last sentence in the page you mentioned should already had > > said something about the ranks. Did you miss it? > > > > Вс, 03 янв 2016, Matthew Baulch написал(а): > > > (0, 1) Thanks for your kind words. It does seem a very supportive and > > > knowledgeable community. > > > > > > (3) This makes sense now. Thanks too for pointing me to NuVoc. It > seems an > > > improvement in some respects, though it appears not to be distributed > with > > > J. > > > > > > (4) I particularly enjoy the terseness of the original Voc., and its > > > availability offline. Perhaps a static copy of NuVoc could be > distributed > > > with J, and the original Voc. could include a warning about its > > > obsolescence? > > > > > > I'd love to see J thrive in the future. It seems the case with all > > > software, whether programming language or not, that documentation very > > > important. J's is very good. This is the only shortcoming I can see. > > > > > > Matt > > > On 3 Jan 2016 1:11 pm, "Henry Rich" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > 0. Welcome to J! > > > > > > > > 1. If you are able to get that far entirely on your own, my hat is > off > > to > > > > you. You're a J natural, and I think you'll enjoy the language. > > > > > > > > 2. Your analysis is brilliant, though not quite perfect. rv must > mean, > > > > not the right rank of v, but instead the rank of a result-cell of v. > > And > > > > even then, the equivalence would not be exact, because of changes to > > > > result-cells when they are assembled into the overall result of v. > > > > > > > > 3. The best resource for learning J is NuVoc. It fills in the gaps > in > > > > the Dictionary, corrects errors like this one, and has tutorial > > > > information. For u@v, see > > > > > > > > http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Vocabulary/at > > > > > > > > 4. The Dictionary is not actively maintained. Don't expect an > update. > > > > But NuVoc is a Wiki, so do what you can to improve it! > > > > > > > > Henry Rich > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 1/2/2016 8:59 PM, Matthew Baulch wrote: > > > > > > > >> The equivalence (from the voc. page for @) > > > >> > > > >> x u@v y ↔ u x v y > > > >> > > > >> only seems to apply in some cases. For instance, with > > > >> > > > >> x =: 1 2 3 4 > > > >> y =: 5 6 7 8 > > > >> u =: */ > > > >> v =: + > > > >> > > > >> this is most certainly false. After exploring a number of cases, > > > >> it seems likely that > > > >> > > > >> x u@v y ↔ u"rv x v y > > > >> > > > >> where rv is the right rank of v. Is this true in all cases? > > > >> If so, I'd be grateful if the dictionary could be updated > accordingly. > > > >> > > > >> Matt Baulch > > > >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >> 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 > > > > -- > > regards, > > ==================================================== > > GPG key 1024D/4434BAB3 2008-08-24 > > gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 4434BAB3 > > gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --armor --export 4434BAB3 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > -- > regards, > ==================================================== > GPG key 1024D/4434BAB3 2008-08-24 > gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 4434BAB3 > gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --armor --export 4434BAB3 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
