Nice first program. I'm afraid pretty much all that there was to say about it has been said already, so all I'll add is my personal preferences for documentation.
I skimmed through several of the included books, before settling on the actual Dictionary introduction. This is probably just personal, as I liked the barebones style of it. Another good book is Learning J by Roger Stokes. It's a little smoother, and although I haven't read it to the end, I believe it touches some more technical aspects (such as how to write fast J code) than the Dictionary does. Of course I would recommend simply finding some random problem to solve (not too complicated!) and just sit down and solve it. A good place to start is www.projecteuler.net <http://www.projecteuler.net/>. The labs (Help | Studio | Labs) are also full of interesting stuff. The essays at http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays <http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Essays> are also really great. I sometimes just pick a random one and end up learning not only about J but about all kinds of other interesting things as well. Just remember, J is not a language you can learn in two weeks. I've been at it for several months, and only as a hobby. It's quite addictive. I still can't fully grasp some of the primitives, and I imagine some more seasoned users aren't completely sure how to use the more complicated ones (H. or ;: for example). Luckily the documentation for J is the best I've seen for any language, period. Press CTRL-F1 often. Louis > On 13 Mar 2016, at 22:53, Marshall Lochbaum <mwlochb...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Although it's perhaps not as important early on as Henry's excellent > advice, I would like to advocate for good use of whitespace and grouping > in J programming. Putting less space around parts which are evaluated > first (generally adverbs) and more around those which are evaluated last > makes it a lot easier to interpret the code and mentally group its parts > together. So I would write (hoping for no line wrap) > > isAnagramOf =: 0: ` ([: */ =&([: /:~@tolower ' '&i. # ])) @. (=&([: # ' '&i. > # ])) > > Here I have replaced a few (@) constructions with ([:), as ([: u v) is > equivalent to (u@:v) but frequently requires fewer distracting > parentheses. Many programmers prefer (@:) instead, but it is a good idea > to use (@:) unless there is an actual reason to use (@). I would > probably further replace ([: # ' '&i. # ]) with (' '&i. #@:# ]), and > subsequently realize that dyad (#@:#) is the same as (+/@:[), giving > (' '&i. +/@:[ ]) or (' ' +/@:i. ]), and similarly group (*/) with (=) as > (*/@:=), since this becomes an easily-understood idiom. > > The two concrete points here are: > - Use whitespace to show precedence: tighter spacing around operators > with less precedence. > - Replace ([: u v@:w) with ([: u@:v w) when u and v are related. This > holds for (&:) instead of (@:), and in monad and dyad forms. > > And the more general rule: pay attention to how your code is written! It > can suggest a lot of relationships that help the reader (usually you) to > understand what is happening. > > Marshall > > On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 03:21:15PM +0000, Adam Tornhill wrote: >> Hi all, >> I finally decided to try to understand this fascinating language. So far >> I've spent some evenings reading and experimenting with the language. J is >> fun. Real fun. I also like how J forces me to re-consider how I view >> programming. Of course, that also means I'm still at a complete beginner's >> stage, so I'd like to ask for some feedback and suggestions on my first J >> code. I'm sure there's a lot I can simplify in my code. >> Here's the code I put together by digging around in the J Dictionary: >> isAnagramOf=:(0:`((*/)@(=&((/:~@tolower)@(' ' & i.#])))))@.(=&(#@:(' ' & >> i.#]))) >> >> Some examples: >> 'Nag a Ram ' isAnagramOf 'Anagram'1 >> 'ab' isAnagramOf 'aa'0 >> All tips and hints on both the code and learning J in general would be much >> welcome. >> Thanks!/Adam-- Homepage: www.adamtornhill.com Twitter: @AdamTornhill >> Your Code as a Crime Scene: >> https://pragprog.com/book/atcrime/your-code-as-a-crime-sceneLisp for the >> Web: https://leanpub.com/lispwebPatterns in C: >> https://leanpub.com/patternsinc >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
