On 4/3/07, Oleg Kobchenko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Some terminology though is not very clear: list/vector and table/matrix. In Dictionary list is 1-array, i.e. having one-element shape. Frame is the shape for a selected cell-rank. When cells are of rank _1, they are called items, and the frame is one-elemet shape. So can we call it list? Then how we distinguished lists when the whole array is rank-1 ? Vectors?
I think the issue here is "list of what". For example, in http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/d300.htm we have a list of cells, which clearly includes arrays with rank greater than 1. In contrast, http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/d200.htm is clearly referring to a rank 1 list. Since the term "list" is a generic term for a collection of arbitrary things, I think it's reasonable indicate when we want something less general (for example, "list of atoms" vs. "list of items" vs. "string"). In contrast, vector is even more restricted, but we can use it more generally if we don't mind being sloppy (sometimes vector implies numeric data and in physics we are also saying something abstract about the physical system we are describing). -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
