Comments on draft J90X refcard (Version b.c1.pdf, with footnotes in each
section).
(JPJ refers to related comments of Jan Pietr-Jacobs on 12 Aug.)
Format:
The title might better be placed at upper left, pushing the Glossary down. I
would prefer a lowercase 'X': 'J90x'. It could be oriented vertically.
For readers of printed copy, the Glossary should be labeled 'Glossary links'.
Section headings should be capitalized in a consistent style. I would like to
see colored highlighting of section headings as in the J602 refcard. I would
also approve of boxing the sections.
The horizontal background striping of entries is too faint on my print to be of
much assistance, but could be made useful. Equally useful could be an
additional vertical pixel or two between particular pairs of entries (or of
all), especially adjacent to 2-D displays, above those without superscripts,
below repeating tall characters (such as {), below underscores, and between
unrelated boxings.
I approve of footnoting each section separately. I would like to see an (a)
footnote preceding each (b) note--especially under "Adverbs". Right-and-left
justification improves delineation of the sections (when unboxed), but impairs
recognition of their content. Being small, the reference letters in the
footnote texts could be emboldend.
In the current size and font, the exclamation point and grave accent are
unrecognizable (or nearly invisible), and the ampersand looks more like a
lowercase 'delta'.
On my print, bold green symbols in the "Conjunctions" section were nearly
smeared into green blobs. The "Adverbs" section abandons the color scheme of
the adjacent "Join" section--arguments are colored. (I have just noticed that
their color is not really red, either. There could be some benefit from
coloring each token in examples with their background color in the Nuvoc
listing.)
In the "Item Selection" section, the last line under "[x] m b. y" has
confusing, perhaps extraneous, vertical bars. (The first of them differs from
the others.)
Text:
Under "Scalar verbs", 'rndm' would be a less ambiguous (JPJ) abbreviation for
'random'.
Under "Circle functions", the dagger is not a symbol I recognize as 'complex
conjugate', especially in a superscript. Was that destined for another form of
footnoting?
In the lower part of "Selection", result '34' should be '3 4'.
In footnote (d) under "Selection", 'Omitted' could be 'Default' (JPJ).
In footnote (a) under "Adverbs", the phrase 'right to left' could be made bold.
Section "Foreigns" could use a headnote or footnote: 'B = byte'.
The last entry uder "Foreigns" could end with '...by/in sentence execution'.
"Modifier trains" could use a table explaining the abbreviations--perhaps (per
JPJ) in "Glossary".
In the explanation for '::' under "Conjunctions", 'u' and 'v' have been
interchanged.
Under "Control structures", 'assert.' should be followed by 'B' (JPJ), to make
sense of the footnotes, which can then substitute that symbol. Footnote (g)
could be reworded to 'Terminate current round of loop'.
Under "Mathematics", the first two entries don't need to be linked. For 'C.',
the directional arrows of conversion should be complementary (JPJ). The
explanation for parity needs no final period. For evaluate, the reference to
footnote (d) should appear after 'x'. In footnote (d), the apostrophe should
be a comma.
Under "Explicit definition", the first column has sporadic spacing. Footnote
(h) would read better as 'see 5:1 in Foreigns'.
Under "Constants", '_7' is actually a 'negative value'. Compound forms 'a?b'
collide with footnote designations. 'x?y' collides with a verb. 'm?e',
suggesting mantissa and exponent, is not really accurate, either, but may be
sufficiently mnemonic. A footnote-(a) marker should be attached to the
'radix-a' (or 'radix-m') line; that footnote should be prefixed with 'In
specifying larger base values, ...'.
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