It seems as tho there are two goals: demonstrating J's power and teaching neophytes. These goals are mutually exclusive. A solution is to have 2 answers: ******************************************************************** 1) The Terse Answer: tightest code possible to showcase J's succinctness, which is a small fraction of J's power over other languages. Consider highlighting this answer with stars. ******************************************************************** 2) The Joe Biden Answer: with voluminous comments for dumb people like me. O.K., it should probably be called, "The Teaching Answer".
I suspect that many people using the other programing language feel the same angst over this and would copy this format if we started it. Jim > Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:15:36 +0000 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Basic animation in J > > Thanks for that, Dan > It would look a lot terser if you did what everyone else does: omit > comments and be sparing with blank lines and those containing only > ')'. IMO the result is just as readable. I'm not saying comments > aren't appealing. What if you confined them all to one block? > Some verbs condense to one-liners, with no space between, like this: > > anim_isi_mbldown=: 3 : 'DIRECTION=: -DIRECTION' > anim_close=: 3 : 'wd ''timer 0; pclose; reset;''' > ... > > Ian > > PS: I've just taken the trouble to read everyone else's reply. OK, I'm > largely anticipated. But I still offer what I wrote. > > > On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 12:44 AM, Dan Bron <[email protected]> wrote: > > I dislike designing GUIs, so I'm not very up to speed on wd and how it's > > changed since I last used it (J4, I think?). I also haven't kept up with > > the various other J GUI tools that have arisen. > > > > > > > > However, I made an attempt to solve the "Basic Animation" task on RC today. > > Here it is: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Basic_Animation#J . I'd > > appreciate a critique; I'm concerned that our entry is longer than almost > > all the others Even better, can someone who's good with J GUIs improve the > > solution (or just toss it out and post a good one)? Note that the animation > > must change direction when the user clicks. > > > > > > > > -Dan > > > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > 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
