Hi - I was reading a section in "Patterns of Software" by Richard P. Gabriel in which he talks about "language size". This book is one of those annoying ones in which he seems to argue for many of the strengths of an APL but never, based on the parts I've read, mentions APL (though he must have known of it).
In the essay on "Language Size", he talks about how the initial implementation of Common Lisp "...was relatively small: 772 defined symbols, including function names, macro names, global variables, and constants." Much of this essay builds the case for a small (but not too small) language being better than a large one. He also touches on the usefulness of arrays, in a way. In any case, here's my count for the size of J7: Vocabulary page: (*/10 4 3)-6 Foreign#: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 13 15 18 128 Foreigns: +/3 20 7 7 6 7 11 5 3 42 1 21 5 7 6 Total: +/114 151 NB. Basic vocabulary symbols + foreigns. +/114 114 151 NB. monads and dyads - assumes all have both forms, but... 379 _24 NB. not both monadic and dyadic - above letters on Vocabulary page... _22 NB. not both - letters and numerals NB. Total: +/114 114 151 _24 _22 NB. monads and dyads and foreigns - univalents 333 So, 333 semantic tokens in total, by my count. -- Devon McCormick, CFA ^me^ at acm. org is my preferred e-mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
