Björn, Yes, I am familliar with E.E. McDonnell's "Life: Nasty, Brutish, and Short" paper. What is different about the link I posted, is that Michael Gertelman gives a step-by-step breakdown of the Game of Life one-liner with visual aids, including visually segmenting the whole function with numbered brackets, and explanatory drawings of the various matrix operations. Eugene did go into some detail on the exercise, but he was more focused on simplifying the one-liner, than explaining how it worked.
I think the visual graphics and step-by-step explanations are one of the best ways for newbies to grasp the concepts in J. Some of this group made a pass at making videos of the operation of a few J primitives a couple of years ago, but that hasn't gone anywhere recently, as far as I know. Skip 2013/3/16 Björn Helgason <[email protected]> > http://www.jsoftware.com/papers/eem/life.htm > > 2013/3/16 Skip Cave <[email protected]> > > > If you want a really short, but effective overview of APL (could be > > translated to J) here is a interesting approach: > > http://catpad.net/michael/apl/ > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > > > > -- > Björn Helgason, Verkfræðingur > Fornustekkum II > 781 Hornafirði, > t-póst: [email protected] > gsm: +3546985532 > twitter: @flugfiskur > http://groups.google.com/group/J-Programming > > > Tæknikunnátta höndlar hið flókna, sköpunargáfa er meistari einfaldleikans > > góður kennari getur stigið á tær án þess að glansinn fari af skónum > /|_ .-----------------------------------. > ,' .\ / | Með léttri lund verður | > ,--' _,' | Dagurinn í dag | > / / | Enn betri en gærdagurinn | > ( -. | `-----------------------------------' > | ) | (\_ _/) > (`-. '--.) (='.'=) ♖♘♗♕♔♙ > `. )----' (")_(") ☃☠ > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm -- Skip Cave Cave Consulting LLC Phone: 214-460-4861 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
