On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 11:48 AM, Jan-Pieter Jacobs < [email protected]> wrote:
[snip] > Other things to note are : you can use a for for dummy, and instead of > multiplying with 1, it's easier to use the identity function (which, as a > bonus works also for non-numeric types). Now a fork as ( ] f g ) is > equivalent to the hook (f g). > > A last simplification is that the left most tine of a fork ( A in the fork > (A B C) can be a constant, in which case it is interpretted as a verb > returning the constant as result. > [snip] > Probably there are people better in explaining than me ... > Jan-Pieter, this is one of the better explanations I've read or can remember. I've been using J for probably 9 months and I completely missed the association with a fork and the kitchenware/tool used for eating. The fork diagrams made me think of "fork in the road", which then gets twisted in my head since "forks in the road" typically have two paths... To combat this, I devised the silly mnemonic of "hook means two verbs because there are two consecutive letter o's". I like the kitchenware association much better to remember fork and thereby remember hook. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
