On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 5:59 PM, Andrew Pennebaker <[email protected]> wrote: > Raul, yeah, I mean the OS command line, using the jconsole as a J > interpreter. Why, does J have an equivalent to C's system()?
Yes, it does. > I'm flummoxed why any interpreters neglect to include readline support for > backspace, delete, up/down history, and tab completion. I hacked out a toy > language, Horns <http://code.google.com/p/horns/>, and it wasn't hard to > give its command line interpreter this functionality, even across Windows, > Mac, and Linux. Fortunately, jconsole does include readline support. I just do not like configuring it. > I know what gdb is, but I don't see a need for it. I seem to get by fine > with interpreter manual print statements, testing, and > QuickCheck<http://www.yellosoft.us/quickcheck> Ok... how do you manage with mysql? With vi? Anyways, J's command line is much faster and more convenient for me than the OS command line. The OS just doesn't support J's abstractions, so its command line is not well suited for dealing with them. > My priorities when learning a new programming language are > > - Installation > - Shebangs (so that I can ./ my code) > - Hello World > - Manipulating collections > - Parsing and formatting numbers and strings > - Declaring custom data types > - FizzBuzz <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FizzBuzz> > - Printing command line arguments > - Figuring out a script's filename, using ARGV if necessary > - ScriptedMain <http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Scripted_Main> > - Packing code for other programmers to use Some of those have quite a lot to deal with, some of those are against J's design (for example, J does not support custom data types, and wherever possible J tries to make types irrelevant). Meanwhile, the best thing that J does for me, is give me a way of rapidly iterating and testing -- I edit a line and re-issue it... The OS command line isn't very good at this. -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
