William Tanksley, Jr <[email protected]> wrote: >> PS: Even if this discussion leads to a good alternative input method >> implementation, there is still a ton of work involved in transcribing >> (or rerendering) all the existing J symbols (digraphs and trigraphs) >> into the new symbols (whatever they may turn out to be).
> Agreed -- and this is a great argument for enthusiasts to I'm certain I typed this in full. Odd. Anyhow, this is a great argument that enthusiasts should build mockups and partial solutions to demo their ideas. The Emacs screenshot we saw was what convinced me that APL symbols DO look good in J. Other ideas people have mentioned could be similarly supported, and might convince people who are holding back. For example, I'm STRONGLY leery of the idea that J should assume the presence of relatively new input technology. One poster commented the opposite by saying "We have to be careful when we make the assumption that there will only be a standard 110-key keyboard with every computing device from now on." No, that's not where we should be careful. Rather, we should be careful when assuming that cutting-edge technology will survive rather than being replaced by something unknown to us now. We should think in terms of what we have right now, not _assuming_ that it will be the only thing, but rather realizing that it will continue to be available, and if we design something that's inconvenient and expensive right now it will continue to be inconvenient and expensive in the foreseeable future as well. But you know, I could be convinced of the opposite. I have a smartphone, and it happens that I downloaded Graffiti Pro back when it was free. Should I build an APL macro set for it as a proof-of-concept? That might be interesting... But I'm suspicious that it wouldn't work. Anyone willing to prove me wrong? :-) -Wm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
