> Sorry to throw a spanner in the works! I'm hearing this message from all quarters. Well, it's not too late, I guess... Wiki is supposed to mean cooperative working. Will the forum please cooperate in building me an agreed, stable, serviceable list of names for the ascii chars, with no gotchas? Then I shall alter http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Vocabulary/FormalPageNames and my underlying J script before I build any more on it.
But let's have a deadline 'cos this discussion could run and run, but Moses really needs his tablets of stone. (I always wondered why he asked the Lord for them, rather than draw them up democratically :) How about midnight, GMT, Friday 12 Feb? (Meanwhile, my work halts.) Ian On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 10:15 PM, Sherlock, Ric <r.g.sherl...@massey.ac.nz> wrote: >> From: Ian Clark >> >> Look, I can use any set of names we want. But I can't even make a >> start without a set of names, and once chosen they unavoidably get set >> in concrete. Has anyone got a showstopper of a reason not to go with >> the list in >> http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Vocabulary/FormalPageNames ? >> ...which is the same as column 4 in table 2 of >> http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Vocabulary/Discussion >> >> Aren't they're only placeholders as far as the end-user is concerned? >> Is anyone seriously going to type them or have to remember them? I >> can't think of a task that needs that. > > After having attempted to author a couple of pages for the wiki dictionary, > one thing that I have noticed is that it is useful to have "natural" > (memorable) names when trying to write links to other pages. I'm moving more > to the feeling that we should choose a simple set of names even if it means > it doesn't exactly match some Official list. By and large I like the Red Book > names, but I would support making a few changes where they result in more > natural names: > > asciicircum -> circum > asciitilde -> tilde > period -> dot > > Sorry to throw a spanner in the works! > >> There's an argument for having a consistent set of names, taken from >> some published source, not just an Irish Parliament of what we fancy. >> Someone suggested the set from the Adobe Red Book and that's what I >> went with. Even though it says "period" for "dot" (which I personally >> don't fancy much, but I don't think it matters). >> >> Have I missed something in the long discussion we've had about it on >> this thread? >> If so stop me before I do another thing. >> >> Ian >> >> >> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 9:22 PM, neville holmes <holme...@yahoo.com.au> >> wrote: >> > I know it's rather presumptuous of me coming into this >> > project from the sidelines, but, given the idea is to >> > make things easier for novices, I do feel careful >> > consideration should be given to J names. >> > >> > For example, in the names of Ian Clark's stubs: >> > >> > = equal >> > =. equalperiod >> > =: equalcolon >> > < less >> > <. lessperiod >> > <: lesscolon >> >> greater >> >>. greaterperiod >> >>: greatercolon >> > >> > Surely it should be equaldot &c. simply because, >> > for a novice it's one syllable rather than three >> > and for someone needing an English dictionary >> > it's less ambiguous. >> > >> > Even more pedantically, less and greater strictly >> > refer to magnitudes and lower and higher would be >> > better. Otherwise, less means subtraction and >> > lesser would be better than less. >> > >> > Neville Holmes, P.O. Box 2412, Bakery Hill 3354, Victoria >> > >> > Send instant messages to your online friends >> http://au.messenger.yahoo.com >> > --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> - >> > 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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
