> words and phrases used in other languages like FORTRAN, C, etc. and even
Good point. Moreover, there are whole paradigms, which in
other languages/systems are approached differently. For example,
strings: in exosphere, there are libraries for strings, whereas
in J, a string being just a simple array of chars, similar operations
are scattered throughout the vocabulary and phrases. So I always
wished there were equivalencies for J with this and other libraries.
(This is now partly addressed by Phrases in Wiki.)
One winning instructional strategy, including Gilman and Rose,
is telling a story for each piece of material. Such stories,
among other things, may revolve around exo-paradigms.
> From: Don Guinn <dongu...@gmail.com>
>
> When I first encountered J I knew several programming languages including
> APL. And, as always doing things backwards, I started by reading the
> Dictionary. It was tough! It took a while, but I finally began to understand
> J. But then what troubled me was that "I know how to do this in
> APL/FORTRAN/whatever,
> and I remember seeing it in the Dictionary, but I can't find it. It still
> happens to this day.
>
> What I needed, and still do at times, is a reference keyed by non-J
> terminology to J. A section in help called "HowTo". This would be a list of
> words and phrases used in other languages like FORTRAN, C, etc. and even
> English which people use to describe doing something on a computer. For
> example: The word "Select" would link to a section containing several places
> in J help. Other words like "Index" and "Subscript" could link to the same
> section. The section for these words would reference various ways that one
> could perform the action in J and could look something like:
>
> { Index, Subscript Similar to subscripting in other programming languages
> # Copy Pick items based on a mask
> /. Key Group items based on a key
> {. Take Take beginning items
> }. Drop Drop beginning items
>
> In this case, each primitive above would be a link into the Dictionary for
> that primitive. This is not intended to be a complete description on how to
> do those things, but simply make it easy to find the appropriate J facility.
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