;:'(. x + y ).' ┌──┬─┬─┬─┬──┐ │(.│x│+│y│).│ └──┴─┴─┴─┴──┘ (. |spelling error | (. | ^ ). |spelling error | ). | ^
Apparently (. and ). could be used as markers; then all that tacit chutzpah (I like those words that are so refreshingly open to interpretation) could go where it belongs! ________________________________ From: Oleg Kobchenko <[email protected]> To: Programming forum <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, December 20, 2009 12:39:56 AM Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Tacit exercise m : '...' to {...} is like (x1;x2;...) { y to y[x1;x2;...] {...} in APL is another special syntax, whereas J tries to be functional. However, if indexing in J maintains the scope (a variable from outer scope can be used to construct expression x1), the explicit definition introduces totally different and disconnected scope. And that is another ugly bit. I don't know if they do it in APL for {...}, but it could allow for naturally supporting such things as closures. > From: Viktor Cerovski <[email protected]> > > To me the main problem with explicit definitions is that > they are always first and foremost strings (or as it is often said, > scripts). > > Tacit expressions are more alive: as soon as you define one, > it gets evaluated and you get something back that is valid, > From: Roger Hui <[email protected]> > > Dyalog APL did not assign function (and operator) meanings > to { and }. Instead, you can do the equivalent of > > length=: {%:+/*:y} > > To do the same in J we'd need (at the very least) > to find a pair of "enclosing" symbols. To get rid of > the quotes we'd need something stronger. (Special > parser rules.) > From: Andrew Nikitin <[email protected]> > > I think the reason that so many people dislike explicit definitions is > because > they are syntactically ugly. Multiline is only mildly ugly, but single line > is > freak. Come on, > > length=:3 : '%: +/ *: y' ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
