Hey,
Thank you for the hearty feedback. I'll reply inline, for ease of reading.
Aug 15, 2022, 03:12 by artan...@comcast.net:
>
>
> 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.
>
The title functions more as a last-minute placeholder, because foreigns and
misc, Henry reckoned, deserve space expansion in the near future. I think the
equal height doesn't discenter and distract, it's even. You are free to
recompile it without whatever title, arbitrarily rotated, inverted, transformed
placed anywhere on or off the page.
> For readers of printed copy, the Glossary should be labeled 'Glossary links'.
>
Good notice, in the coming US letter and A4 versions I'll remove them, until a
better alternative is thought up. The 4 concepts are very important.
> 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.
>
Capitalization has been made consistent. Excessive rules are visual clutter,
which is why I used striping as guides. If you prefer your header rows framed,
you are free to edit and recompile.
> 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 use/prefer darker shades personally, but I also didn't want to be wasteful of
ink for those who will go for printing, and it had to not be as dark as the
gray used for partion demarkation. The old version, the one sent was indeed
cramped. This has been resolved, that is, no underscore and footnotemarks go
into or touch the below or above row. You could increase baselineskip and
fontsize however much you like, if you are not satisfied.
> 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.
>
I can't parse the (a) (b) sentence, please rephrase. Column count, content and
alignment is tricky to get 'right'. I've tried RCL, R, L, and C, alone in the
context of other longer and or shorter rows, each is hideous in its own special
way, but RCL at least guides the reader or viewer to the primitive being
defined, rather than its x or y.
> 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.)
>
If I recall correctly, the 3 tetradic compliment color scheme were toned done
in luminesence and saturation, and yesterday I added a color-blind friendly
one, which I'm most happy with since it resembles the Monokai color
scheme/palette so much, and it looks great again dark gray. The NuVoc listing
was the basis for the color scheme used, actually. If somebody else weighs in,
scales will be tipped in favor of darker striping, and I'll update the
'official'.
> 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'.
>
I have never ever seen rndm as a shortening of random. We went with rand,
although I'd rather an r with a footnote saying what it is. Different strokes.
> 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).
>
Was noticed and fixed.
>
> 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".
>
If you don't know the basic most terminology of the parts of the sentence and
how they're used in J, the reference sheet is not for you. Same could be said
of the PoS, e.g., what is noun and what's it doing in my refsheet?
> 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'.
>
Fixed x3.
> > 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.
>
I cannot remember what the first two entries were when the pdf was sent out.
Fixed x3. They are indeed coefficients of powers.
>
> 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, ...'.
>
Well-noted on the negative. Coloring and italicization is used to disambiguate
from the ? verb. Given the example, we think it self-explanatory. Arguably,
only the upper bound should be state z and 35.
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