And just how is one supposed to discover the existence of “exit"? There’s a broader issue here: on the one hand, the disjointedness of the standard J documentation into General Info, Release Highlights, Vocabulary, User, Primer, etc.; and on the other hand, the lack of a search across the local documentation. (At least so far as I can find.)
Find in Files is of no use for “exit”, since as I recall most or all stuff in the z locale is now coded at a low level rather than in a J script. An on-line search at www.jsoftware.com and even in jwiki doesn’t seem to reveal the existence of “exit”, either. Of course even if there were such a productive search available, it wouldn’t help if you didn’t know that “exit” is what you should search for. So I’ll second Blake McBride’s suggestion of a “comprehensive dictionary of pre-defined verbs”. At Mon, 20 Jan 2014 12:06:30 -0700, Don Guinn <dongu...@gmail.com> wrote: > exit is already defined in the z locale. > > > On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 11:31 AM, Devon McCormick <devon...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> This is a good point and it's been brought up before. I define >> q=: 2!:55 >> and enter >> q'' >> to exit J but it's not standard. We should probably make "exit" more >> accessible. >> >> >> On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Blake McBride <bl...@mcbride.name> wrote: >> >>> Greetings, >>> >>> Just providing some feedback.... >>> >>> The fist thing I wanted to know when I started J was how to exit. I did >>> some research and discovered 2!:55. I then defined a verb and used that >> to >>> exit. Therefore, in order to get a clean way to exit a new language, I >> had >>> to learn what a verb is, what system verbs were available, how to define >>> it, and how to load it. (I know about ^d but think that is hardly a >> clean >>> way to exit.) >>> >>> Now, years later, I discover the pre-defined verb 'exit'. I checked the >>> docs, especially "Learning J". There is no mention of 'exit'! >>> >>> As someone who has played with many languages over the years, and in fact >>> an author of one, I respectfully suggest updating chapter 1 of Learning J >>> to tell the user how to exit. Making a research project out of the first >>> obvious desire is an unnecessary impediment to a language acquision. >>> >>> Additionally, since I discovered 'exit', a comprehensive dictionary of >>> pre-defined verbs would be very helpful. (I know about z, etc.) >>> >>> Thanks. Just some thoughts... —— Murray Eisenberg mur...@math.umass.edu Mathematics & Statistics Dept. Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 240 246-7240 (H) University of Massachusetts 710 North Pleasant Street Amherst, MA 01003-9305 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
