Tracy Harms wrote:
> In my attempts to understand the core concepts
> on which J depends I've developed a strong opinion
> that two is a natural maximum for arguments, and
> attempts to alter the language to exceed that would
> fail in a big way.
Two points here:
0. My motivation for [. and ]. were specifically
related to tacit coding and arose when I was trying
to teach tacit coding a decade or so ago (see my
teaching material presently appearing in Vector)
and realised they would be extremely helpful.
1. My suggestion would not directly introduce the
possibility of third and fourth arguments. This
only arises because & can take a nominal operand.
As Raul Miller pointed out, [. and ]. would be
verbs and would actually bring in operands. Any
tacit expression containing ]. would define a
conjunction, otherwise an adverb if containing
a [. .
(It seems to me that there would be interesting
consequent possibilities in the use of gerunds
in operands, but this is merely a transient
speculation.)
I hope this explanation will clarify some of the
questions raised by other contributors.
Neville Holmes, P.O. Box 2412, Bakery Hill 3354, Victoria
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