One of our earliest projects in NYCJUG was a Basic/J "Rosetta Stone". It never got very far but the idea is that Basic and its variants are widely-understood, so this might provide a starting point for people unfamiliar with J.
The little bit of elaboration we did on this can be found here: www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/NYCJUG/2008-03-11 . Looking at it now, it seems perhaps too digressive but may be helpful to someone encountering J for the first time. On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 8:51 PM, Jim Russell <[email protected]> wrote: > (Sorry, I got no further than "No," when I put my iphone back in my shirt > pocket and "man boob" sent it.) > > More later when I try to recall all the dumb words phrases I was > fruitlessly trying to find as I played with J on my iPhone this past week. > > > On Feb 9, 2014, at 8:22 PM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Do you mean like http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/vocabul.htm? > > > > Thanks, > > > > -- > > Raul > > > > > >> On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Jim Russell <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I suspect that a glossary of J (and related programming terms) would > help a great deal. Or does one exist? > >> > >>> On Feb 9, 2014, at 1:30 AM, 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 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Devon McCormick, CFA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
