Without taking a stance on the issue (I'm not sure where I stand), I will note there are types of writing and writers who try to eliminate redundancy to the extent possible, and this is seen as a virtue. For example, mathematical proofs (IIRC), and for that matter, programming.
There are also (different) types of writing and communicating where redundancy is intentional and typical. One could argue dictionaries fall into this category (where a definition is often described with multiple synonymous terms and some examples). Critical communiques are also often redundant (but not always re-expressive, which warrants attention). Then again, most of us ask for more redundancy in the DoJ when we're learning the language, and find it fine as it stands once we already know what it means (aka are already fluent in the language). Ken would have been the first to (emphatically) tell you that he did not intend the Dictionary to be used as a tutorial, but rather a reference, which is in accord with the previous paragraph. He wrote other material to be used as tutorials (and pioneered the use of those interactive tutorials, the Labs). And several others have supplemented this external (to the DoJ) learning material. -Dan PS: If I ever finish the PrimitivePrimitives project, it could be a basis for an alternative, highly redundant Vocabulary. And I would not be too surprised if some of the entries made it into the examples sections in the true Vocab. After all, they would be J code, not redundant (competitive to the normative) English, and the examples are already (purposefully) redundant. The project itself would be redundant to the Dictionary :) Please excuse typos; composed on a handheld device. -----Original Message----- From: Jose Mario Quintana <[email protected]> Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:25:16 To: Programming forum<[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] The Ambiguous Dictionary In my opinion R.E. Boss’ point still stands (notwithstanding what Wikipedia’s value as a general source of reference might be from one’s point of view). What can be sufficiently clear to the writer might not be to the reader and redundancy (from the author perspective) could clarify the exposition of difficult concepts (from a reader’s viewpoint). Extra explicit statements in the dictionary such as "adverbs and conjunctions cannot take adverbs or conjunctions as arguments" or "a fork does not have any other implied order-of-execution apart from the diagrams" can or could have been helpful as far as I am concerned (so, in the latter case, even the best of the readers would not have to guess the original intention ( http://www.jsoftware.com/pipermail/programming/2007-December/009118.html ). ________________________________ From: Raul Miller <[email protected]> To: Programming forum <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, January 13, 2010 8:31:56 AM Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] The Ambiguous Dictionary On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 2:18 AM, R.E. Boss <[email protected]> wrote: > From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_(language) > (capitals from me, REB): And we all know that the wiki is always completely accurate. -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
