I really like the look of this. Ian
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Dan Bron <j...@bron.us> wrote: > Björn wrote: >> I agree that it is important to document well >> how to communicate with files etc. > > I agree that hints and pointers to library functions should be interspersed > in our Vocabulary pages, e.g. > > == ;. (cut) == > > Cut does such and such... > > == uses == > Cut is often used to parse text: > > <;._1 '/please/parse/me!' > (more examples). > > Though of course, like many primitives, ;. is type-agnostic and can be > used to parse any time of array, not just text. > > == notes == > > 1. Many standard J utilities take advantage of these features, and > provide convenient, pre-packaged parsing functions for many > common cases. In fact, most J applications rely on these > standard > utilities rather than building a parser from scratch with cut. > For > example, we could've written the above as: > > require'strings' > '/' cut '/please/parse/me!' > (more examples) > > See the libraries strings <link>, csv <link>, etc <link>. > You may > load these libraries in your profile (link), so the utilities > are always > available. > > 2. Advanced parsing can be achieved with the dyad ;: (FSM) <link> > (and its monadic form <link> has a pre-packaged parse for J code). > > We could do similar things for the documentation of 1!: (e.g. "Most J > applications rely on the standard definitions in the files and dir libraries > <links>, rather using the 1!: foreigns directly). > > But this is about the greatest level of detail appropriate to a reference > work. For more in depth treatments of the libraries, or "how tos" for > various common programming problems (e.g. reading files, parsing text, > building GUIs), we could refer to existing tutorials and labs, or write > supplementary, non-reference documents where the existing material is thin. > > But let's keep the Dictionary to its purpose: definitions. > > -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
