The idiomatic way to pass state from execution on one cell to the
execution on the next is with u/ or u/\., depending on whether you need
the result from each cell or just the final result. You write
|. u/\. (|. array) , initialvalue
and u is repeatedly executed between (cell of y) and (previous result).
If the amount of state passed between executions is large, this can be
inefficient. The language could be enhanced by primitives that address
this situation. Watch this space.
Henry Rich
On 2/19/2018 10:57 PM, Raul Miller wrote:
Hmm... I think you should view the state machine as a component in a
larger system.
I say this because other languages tend to encourage you to push
functionality into loops [loops are a bit laborious and noisy to
write, so you tend to want to not write many of them], but that's not
always a good idea.
So - for example - when using the ;: primitive, it can be entirely
reasonable to add preprocessing and/or postprocessing, if that makes
the job simpler.
It can also be reasonable to use for loops (or sometimes even while
loops), or whatever else -- if my "state machine" needed a stack, I
think I'd be tempted to use a for loop (but note that if the stack is
simple enough it might be easier to represent stack depth using
addition and break out the "stack handling" into a separate
expression, like +/\-/'()'=/text for example).
It can even be reasonable to use side effects to communicate
computational progress between (verb"0) invocations, like you are
doing here, but for whatever reason I usually shy away from that.
That said, once I have a first draft implementation, that I can see,
test and understand, I sometimes I like to rewrite it (perhaps using
primitives instead of explicit loops). [And I should get in the habit
of doing performance tests when this gets multiple working versions -
but, all too often, unless performance problems make themselves known,
I pick based on other criteria, like which one looks simpler to me.]
That's all that I can think of that might be relevant...
Thanks,
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