On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 3:45 PM, Alan Stebbens <[email protected]> wrote: > I did a random sample interview of 10 people around my company and asked them: > > a. when I say "array", what do you think of? > b. what do you think of a zero-dimension array? > c. do you think a zero-dimension array has a value? > > Only one person, out of the ten, answered [c] with "yes; it's a point". I > asked her what her background was, and she said Mathematics and Statistics. > :)
In my experience, this is at least as likely to represent a confusion about the concept of "dimension" as it is to represent a confusion about the concept of "array". Though, of course, they are related. But I imagine a survey about "rank" might yield analogous responses. That said, the purpose of using familiar words is not so that people start with a complete understanding of the concept. The advantage of using familiar words is that there's less need for tangential description when describing the concepts. > In regard to grammar, by the way, I notice that there does not seem to be any > corollary to a pronoun in J -- except possibly the variables: x, y, m, u. Actually, any name in J may be used as a pronoun. The dictionary even mentions this. > The concept of numeric qualifiers or "adjectives" is a nice way to extend the > language in a very useful and productive way. Of course, not sure how this > could be done in J, without extending the grammar to include "adjectives" > (noun modifiers). Then again: verbs in J are can be thought of as noun modifiers... -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
