Skip made his suggestion to me privately and I recommended him to open it up for general discussion.
The idea is brilliant in principle but raises admin problems. However the "Category" apparatus furnishes us with a neat way of doing this, with some useful x-reffing and list-building as a bonus, not to mention being prominent, well-controlled and easily searched. Chris confirms that it might work and suggests the prefix "CategoryVoc" for all such keywords, a suggestion I endorse. The downside of having to search via Google on CategoryVocStruct or CategoryVocVariable, say, is outweighed by the fact that Moinmoin administers it all for free. The repertoire of categories is easily found on the page CategoryCategory and individual categories have a page to themselves and are easily browsed. Every NuVoc page already has a Category list at the bottom, generally containing just one entry: CategoryVoc. I'm going to create a set of new categories, and their pages, over the next few days, based on terms familiar to C/C++ and Visual Basic programmers. Please suggest new terms at: http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/CategoryTerms Once these terms are established as valid categories, please add them to wiki pages, especially NuVoc pages, as a courtesy to J newcomers. IanClark On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 7:38 AM, Björn Helgason <[email protected]> wrote: > I like the idea. > > Problem with cluttering up the pages of nuvoc or voc with keywords could be > avoided by adding translation index. > > The index could list all common words and point to the J equivalent. > > Translation table from APL, K, C, PYTHON, WHATEVER. > > Example like the one Chris gave earlier how to do things in K and then in J > is also great. > > The more examples we get the better. > > How to present them is always difficult and maybe not mix them too much to > avoid further confusion. > > One language to J at a time. > > It would be interesting to see example table like that. > > It is a sort of rosetta stone. > > One complete example in language X and then the same in J. > > I would like to see book about J in the Dummies series with step by step > intros for beginners with easy examples. > > - > Björn Helgason > gsm:6985532 > skype:gosiminn > On 9.2.2014 06:30, "Skip Cave" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I was looking over NuVoc the other day, and thinking how it helped me > learn > > the J primitives. My next thought was how I wished that we could fix the > J > > search engine so that when newbies searched for stuff in the J wiki using > > traditional programming lingo, they would automatically find the J > > equivalent functions. > > > > When J gave new names to all the J programming elements, it was all for > > good reasons. However that made it really hard to learn J by searching > the > > wiki for programming concepts, using common programming names. When I am > > programming in J, I often come to a point where I know what I want to do, > > and I know what most other programming languages would call what I want > to > > do. If I search for that name in the J wiki though, I usually come up > > empty-handed. > > > > What we really need in NuVoc, as well as all of the J doc, is a set of > > common-use keywords attached to every J concept. Thus if a newbie > searches > > for "assignment", he will get the vocabulary and dictionary pages for Is > > (local) and Is (global), When he searches for "indexing" he will get the > > Catalog pages. I could go on like this for quite awhile. > > > > Also when newbies or anyone stumbles upon a new concept in any of the J > > doc, we should make it easy for that person to add new keywords to that > doc > > page. Hopefully the keywords they add will make it easier for the next > > person to find that concept in the future. > > > > So my proposal is that each NuVoc page (and all J doc pages for that > > matter) needs a list of keywords at (say) the bottom of the page, giving > > common programming names for the J concept on that page. In that way, a > > newbie searching for "assignment" would at least have a chance of finding > > what he is looking for. > > > > However, my idea is more that just putting a list of keywords on every > doc > > page, As has been discussed on the J mail list, Newbies who are trying to > > learn J, know what they are looking for, when they search for a > particular > > concept. What If we could make it so when someone finally does find what > > they were looking for, they could easily add words to the keyword list on > > the doc page they found. They could add the words that they were using to > > (unsuccessfully) search for that concept. Then each doc page would start > to > > collect keywords that people commonly use for that concept, making it > much > > easier for newbies (and even casual J user oldies like me) to find that > > concept in the future. > > > > There needs to be an easy (but controlled, and perhaps curated) way to > put > > a new keyword on any doc page, while that page is being viewed. There > needs > > to be a brief statement above the keyword block explaining what it is, > how > > to add a keyword, and why one should do it. > > > > I believe that in the long run, this keyword scheme could have a bigger > > impact on reducing the "steep learning curve" of J than almost any other > > documentation mechanism. > > > > Skip > > > > Skip Cave > > Cave Consulting LLC > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
