For those who love J, or *X* language, a shell built with that language may be preferable to sh. I like trying out tons of different languages, and using a single environment (Bash/vi) to do so. There's nothing wrong with * you* using jconsole as if it were an ordinary shell, but for *me*, I like the uniformity that Bash provides (as ironic as that sounds, considering how diverse/awful shell languages are).
An OS command line shell is a common ground (/waves away arguments over sh vs DOS), whereas each language's interpreter has completely different syntax for exiting and different levels of support for readline (e.g., J and Chicken Scheme have it, but it has to be configured first). Whether you code in your language's interpreter, or use zsh or whatever, the command line is definitely helpful. Close bracket, right arrow: Because a command line interface is almost a guarantee that you can load text file programs which you can edit using your favorite text editor. I hate Squeak's model for that reason. It wants you to use its custom GUI, its interpreter, its code editor, saving code in its format, in its virtual machine images. Nevermind all that, I want to $ squeak hello.st. It's possible to do this, but only because some Smalltalker thought it was worth subverting the whole model and publishing Coral<http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/coral/> . Interesting that J doesn't want you to make custom types. I interpret that as "J wants you to structure your data, but with basic collections, not with fancy pants classes and objects." Arrays can get quite a lot done. Cheers, Andrew Pennebaker www.yellosoft.us On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 6:29 PM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
