I was reaching Henry's conclusion, before I glanced down at his reply, in less than a minute but perhaps with the advantage that I suspected what it was from remembering the APL expression which, I believe, is widely disseminated (at least "widely" for APL).
On 4/4/08, Henry Rich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Finds primes less than y. It took me about 1 minute. > I did check with the interpreter before posting this message. > > > Henry Rich > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan Bron > > Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 12:05 PM > > To: General forum > > Subject: [Jgeneral] How readable is J? > > > > So, we often hear complaints that J is terse to the point of > > being cryptic. That it is unreadable. Let's see if that's true. > > > > Here's a piece of J code I adapted from some APL I came > > across on the net: > > > > (#~ ] -.@:e. [: , */~)@:(2 + i.) > > > > It's a monad whose input is a scalar integer. What is its > > output? What does the verb do? > > > > Now, no cheating: if J is a notation, then we should be able > > to read it without the aid of the interpreter. Don't > > experiment to deduce its function; don't even validate your > > hypothesis in the interpreter. Just work one out and post it here. > > > > You might also post how long it took you to work out, and > > maybe what your thought process was. Or post a > > counter-challenge -- perhaps slightly more difficult. > > > > I'm thinking of involving other communities in this game, so > > if you have a favorite non-J language, you could also > > translate this function into that language (using its natural > > style) and post that, too. Whatever you feel like. > > > > -Dan > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see > > http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Devon McCormick, CFA ^me^ at acm. org is my preferred e-mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
