Given the (really informal) convention that J and APL clauses (noun verb
noun) follow the
structure of control verb data. I find the current order to more closely
match the convention: the space you want to orient your point of
interest is the control, and the point of interest is the data.
World i. CarmenSandiego NB. fits the source sentence well enough.
Although this "debate does seem like the one over the parallel
postulate, from which much hyperbole ensued. (pace Gerry)
>: ...
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Dan Bron wrote:
JR=John Randall, CL=Christopher Lett
John,
I wanted you to know that it was just for you that I wrote:
JR> decades (years? centuries? millennia?)
instead my original "centuries". We've had more than one talk about the modernity of
mathematical notation. And now I'm feeling pretty smug tha I hit it on the money with
"decades" :)
Seriously though, I bet, even before Peano, people would be inclined to say "is x is a member of y?" more often than "does y have member x?".
JR> All of the disputes about argument order to me center around which way to
JR> bond a dyad:
Not for me. Even if we didn't have bond, the dispute would still exist, and
the choice still be relevant. (Wasn't iota invented before jot?)
Because J is right-to-left, a primitive P should be designed to make:
x P y =. thing I'm likely to calculate
more likely than
y P ~ x =. thing I'm likely to calculate
or
(x =. thing I'm likely to calculate) P y
Dyadic i. follows this design principle. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a
tradeoff.
CL> for iota, I came up with, "In x, where do I find y?". It seemed
CL> "natural" (to me at least),
And you didn't find that mouthful a bit convoluted? Even the English sounds backwards to
me. Plus, it's begs the question somewhat: you memorized a phrase that described what
iota did do, not what you would've expected a "lookup function" to do.
CL> But what is "natural" is probably in the eye (ear? brain?) of
CL> the beholder.
Ah, that's what we're debating. Is there a 50/50 chance than a given beholder would expect x&i. over i.&y , or do "most beholders" expect one over the other?
-Dan
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