I was intrigued by Ian's comment about adding a list of coding task examples, but like Henry, was not inspired by the python.org SimplePrograms. My inclination (and perhaps Ian's as well) is much more to think in terms of rosettacode.org tasks. For me, a disappointing aspect of the rosettacode.org tasks is the apparent lack of classifications for the tasks, but upon snooping around a bit more I found a potential list of task classifications at the following link at the bottom of the page under the subheading "Programming Task Categories". (While the list to which I have referred is on a discussion page for a particular programming language that I am unfamiliar with, at first blush it looks well thought out.)
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Icon%2BUnicon/Analysis_of_UnimplementedTasks#Analysis_of_Programming_Categories_on_Rosetta According to another link (below), J is quite well represented on rosettacode.org so I wonder if by using the list of categories, a meaningful list of examples could be generated. Also I wonder if the scripts at http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Scripts could be classified accordingly? Although, it seems that with only 82 such Scripts, and 51 such task categories (according to my count), the result might not be very meaningful. But if others think such a taxonomy would help, I would be willing to try to investigate further, although I am pretty weak on computer science and feel very inadequate to such a task because of my extremely limited background. http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Sort_most_popular_programming_languages Other inspiring links are below. http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Studio/SimpleExamples On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 5:35 AM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > Minimal Beginning J fills an important gap. One I had on my list to fill > urgently -- but Devon's got there first, with a surprisingly simple starter > set. Good Work, Devon! > > Initially I was tempted to second-guess Devon by tweaking his list. Soon I > was convinced that if somebody could improve upon it, that somebody wasn't > me. > > People coming from C, Basic, Python, etc etc will straightaway say: hey > where's a[3] ? Should we give them { and } ? By the same token, people > coming from Fortran (and Basic) will say: hey where's GOTO? Should we give > them (goto_name.)? > > Bear in mind that Minimal Beginning J is the first rung on a long ladder. > The hitherto missing first rung! Since it already offers }. {. and # -- why > not leave { and } to the second rung? > > What's still badly needed though is some evidence this starter set is good > enough for some recognizable programming of a general nature. Not just fit > for knocking down a few carefully chosen straw-men. > > I know little or no Python, so a visit to www.python.org is most > instructive -- and very sobering. Almost the first thing a beginner like me > sees is a list of "Simple programs" ( > https://wiki.python.org/moin/SimplePrograms). > > We could do worse than rip-off this list of coding tasks *exactly* as it > stands and show them in Minimal Beginning J. A sort of "Minimal Beginning > Rosetta", if-you-will. I know "me-too" isn't that sexy a sport -- but is > the first rung really the place for "me-only"? > > > -- (B=) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
