On 2016-07-29 19:19, Raul Miller wrote:
On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 12:51 PM, Erling Hellenäs
<[email protected]> wrote:
-You have to count the verbs in a verb train to know if it's a hook or fork
before you start deciphering it.
That is a good argument for using whitespace to hint at whether you
are doing a hook or a fork,
and also to keep the train relatively short.
People tend to be able to instantly recognize counts up to maybe 5 or
6 if they can see what they are counting. Some people can instantly
recognize counts even higher than that, unless they are trying not to
(look at your hands - how many fingers do you have?).
-For every single function you have to think about which argument go in and
out.
That is always the case for any use of functions. Or, for any use of
procedures. Or, for any use of computers.
Unless someone else is doing it for you. Then they have to do the
thinking, instead.
-There are a lot of different ways to express the most simple thing like a
number of consecutive monadic functions.
This is inherent in mathematics. For example, these all have equivalent results:
1+2+2+3
2*2*2
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1
This is also inherent in english, though good examples depend on
accepting a context as valid.
-A lot of &,@,@:,[, ], [: and all imaginable combinations of those pretty
complex operations are most often only used to get the right argument to the
right function.
That is what most of all programming is about, regardless of the
language. That, and understanding what happens with those arguments.
The useful stuff, though, is when you hook up that knowledge to
something useful.
(Done right, programming is about being able to do a little extra work
and, as a consequence, being able to achieve the result of having done
a lot of extra work. And, ok, this tends to result in bursts of "a
little extra work" kinds of activity and occasional headaches. But for
some reason many people want to leave out the work part and just
expect some kind of magical goodness to happen because they did that.
Or they make up all sorts of reasons to not do anything worthwhile.
And then convince other people of those reasons. Do enough of that and
you get collapsing industries, banking failures, ghost towns and
decaying infrastructure. Not that that ever happens anywhere... er...
anyways, sorry, back to this discussion...)
I think I stated my point, so I choose to not continue discussing this.
It does not mean I agree.
I wanted it to basically be like J, because I wanted a discussion here, so I
kept most things like they are in J, even many things I would have done
differently.
Well, I guess we are discussing it.
Thanks,
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