Well said.
Roger S.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy Harms" <[email protected]>
To: "Programming forum" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 4:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Design goals readability and writeability?
Linda,
There is a similarity that allows J's verb trains and graphic modifiers to
be compared to silent and spoken aspects of phrasing in natural languages.
I doubt we can rely on that similarity to much advantage.
In J, when a verb is created tacitly from a combination of more than one
component verb, the relationship between the arguments and results of its
components is of particular interest. The "flow" among component verbs is
emphasized by J, being one of the few things that gets written down when
writing J.
We can write down a relationship among verbs by arranging them in a train,
or we can write down a relationship between verbs by making them arguments
to modifiers. Yes, J emphasizes forks and hooks by making them
particularly
easy to write, which is done by making the conjoining meta-function
invisible (i.e. unwritten). But verb trains are not wholly unlike
conjunctions. They are better thought of as kinds of conjunctions.
In writing tacit J we have choices as to how we put verbs together, but
that's what we're doing whether we use trains or not as the means. Trains
are handy for many things but they are not optimal for all things. J has a
rich collection of additional operators for "routing," with Under serving
as a fine representative.
In my experience defining tacit verbs is largely about arranging the
component verbs, and much of this is a matter of selecting their internal
arrangement. Despite the fact that the J programming language is biased
toward forks, it's up to each author to choose among all the options when
phrasing.
--
T
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