Then I've probably been overwriting it for years with my own definition and never noticed until my recent attempts to strip away my customizations: I have 205 names in the "base" class - time to clean house. For the time being, I can avoid re-writing existing code by over-riding the standard definition with something like "dir=: 2&dir_z_".
However, in order to maintain compatibility between J6 and J7, I need to include something like "if. IFJ6 do. ..." but "IFJ6" does not exist in J6, so I must preface this with something like "if. -.nameExists 'IFJ6' do. IFJ6=: 1 end." Could we avoid cruft like this in the future by defining a system global "IFJ7" (or, even better "ISJ7" so that statements using it will avoid "if. IF...") in J7? Or does someone have a better way of dealing with this? To emphasize what I said to Mr. Eisenberg, I think J7 is may be easier for newbies but more complicated for those of us with an accumulated "installed base". I'm taking this opportunity to clear out un-necessary custom definitions, but it does involve painful re-thinking of my old code. On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 6:24 PM, chris burke <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Devon McCormick <[email protected]> > wrote: > > It does seem complicated, doesn't it? I think much of this has to do > with > > our own customizations. With this new version, I'm attempting to reduce > > the number of idiosyncratic verbs I define in my startup and to adhere to > > the existing customs as much as possible. However, I was dismayed to > find > > that the supplied "dir" verb returns information in a much less useful > > format than my own simple definition "dir=: 1!:0@<". > > This definition of dir has been there almost from the start of J, but > in the dir.ijs script. One reason for combining dir and other scripts > into stdlib is to standardize on their use, and avoid this kind of > problem. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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
