Hmm... first off, I'm lost on a lot of your questions. As in: I do not have enough context to know where to look to answer them. Second, every time you fail to ask a question because you think you are dumb you are hindering others who do not have your background but have similar questions. Documenting as you learn can be very helpful to other people, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time. (I struggle with similar issues).
Anyways, using a mix of my memory and some web searches and downloads, here's what I've come up with so far. JE - "J Engine" - referenced from http://www.jsoftware.com/user/overview.htm- I think this is a reference to what is called J.DLL on windows systems and "libj.so" on linux systems. Implicitly, I think this refers to J version 8. JHS - "J HTTP Server" - this is included in J version 7 and J version 8. Basically, it's the J Engine running as a web server, and the user is expected to be using a modern web browser as their development environment. This has a lot of promise but is still not all that mature. I think it needs better documentation (and, as is usual for any system needing better documentation it might be easiest to rewrite parts of the system to make them easier to document). For now: it's mostly "download and install J and then inspect the implementation, and ask questions here". I imagine you could also pay the ISI folk for some of their time to document the system but maybe a better use of resources is to try it out and document as you go? It's open source software and it's really up to you to decide what kinds of contributions best fit your future interests. Donating money is perfect for corporate use, donating time and creativity is perfect for fringe, personal and academic use, donating advertising is perfect for consulting use, donating questions is perfect for beginner use, etc. But it's ok if we are not perfect, of course. JVM - I think this is a reference to J Version 6, where the development environment was a Java application. JVM was where the included instance of Java was placed, or a reference to the java virtual machine. Not sure what you meant about "the J8 q" but you can currently download J version 6 and J version 7 from http://www.jsoftware.com/stable.htm and J version 8 is mentioned an linked in the first paragraph there. Bullet commands - outside my experience, so I can't answer "why", but while I was composing this, Eric Iverson posted http://jsoftware.com/pipermail/general/2014-February/035760.html Event handlers are something of an open ended subject. Basically an event handler or callback is where you write some verb which to tailor the behavior of some software that someone else wrote. The conventions and specifics depend on the software in question. Speaking from personal experience, here's some of my notes on event handlers used with J version 6's "wd" system: http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Raul%20Miller/J%20Event%20Handlers - some parts of wd are probably unique to J version 6, but the Qt front end for J version 8 is also getting a wd implementation http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Guides/Window%20Driver - there's a lot of work that people have been putting in, here. But, for a completely different set of event handlers, consider what I wrote yesterday about the sax/xml addon: http://jsoftware.com/pipermail/programming/2014-February/034926.html - here startDocument, startElement, etc. are event handlers. But, basically, you just look at the documentation for the addon you are interested in using and that should get you enough detail to get started. Or try things out. Or ask questions here. I don't really mean to be promoting what I wrote myself, but it's a lot easier for me to remember about what I wrote than about (for example) what Eric wrote. But I have an advantage over Eric - he's written a lot more of the J environment where I'm more of an outsider, so I have something a bit closer to a beginner's perspective. Seriously, though - do not allow yourself to be intimidated into not asking questions. If it gets too noisy here we can split forums or point you in other directions but let's not solve that problem until we have it. (It's probably good to spend a month reading the forum before making your first post, but 10 years is overdoing it a bit, in my opinion.) Jh and Js - this is not triggering any memories for me. Can you give the context? smoutput - the official documentation is probably the three words "output to session" at http://www.jsoftware.com/user/script_stdlib.htm, and the classic approach to learning about it is to try it out interactively. You can also enter its name and look at the definition, which is 0 0 $ 1!:2&2 and you can look up the 1!:2 foreign by following the "Foreigns" link from a vocabulary page such as http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/vocabul.htm Official documentation for J tends to be terse, just like the language. But we have the forums and the wiki (and occasional blog posts - we probably need more blog posts) to back that up. If "output to session" does not satisfy you, if you need examples, create them! And tell others. Please understand that any issue you have will be shared by others, and we probably should not want others to wait 10 years before asking questions. There's also a #jlang on twitter, and I think there's google groups. Maybe someone should start a tumblr. There's a book or two on lulu. But honestly the more we have the more we need to document it, and we've a lot of work ahead of us, particularly for beginners, if we are to make the language more approachable. That said, for an experienced programmer it's often a lot easier to show than to tell, so you should also expect some questions along the line of "what problem are you trying to solve"? NuVoc page: http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/NuVoc plot options: http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Plot - there's a lot there, so follow the links and be prepared to spend a week or two playing with it. A lot of the plot features assume some relevant mathematical background and some willingness to experiment. I could probably write a book about plot, but my interests lie elsewhere. If enough people ask the same question someone will probably eventually update the documentation. Or write a tutorial covering that subject. We need more questions (and more in-depth questions). Ix - no clue. Can you give the context? (If this is IOS, I'm currently without any apple products so I will have to leave those questions to other people. I will save a description of my frustrations there (*cough* including especially touch device physics *cough*) for a hypothetical discussion in the chat forum. Nothing is perfect. Hall - no clue. Can you give the context? Startup message. For J6 use the menu Edit->Configure... Category: Startup -- Welcome to J - select the check box labeled "Show Welcome to J form" but you could also simply reinstall the app. Maybe you should consider yourself the prototypical IOS user? - ask a few questions here, are some of your concerns, give a little time for the easy issues to be fixed, blog about some of the larger issues? You almost certainly know more about the J iFoo implementation than I. Thanks, -- Raul On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Jim Russell <[email protected]> wrote: > One reason I follow the J forums, is in response to the advice "if you are > the smartest person In the room, find another room". There ought to be a > corollary "when you are the dumbest person in the room, keep silent so as > not to prove it." So I'm reluctant to document the questions I struggled > with as I recently revisited J on my iphone, but here are some, in no > particular order: > > If I forget about JE JHS JVM, etc., do I need to find the definitions in > the release notes? (Not to mention the J8 q? new mnemonics.) > > What are bullet commands? Why might I use them? Just to avoid quoting > character arguments? What is the J approach to event handlers? Any IOS > events J programs can handle? > > What is the difference between Jh and Js? Where is smoutput documented? > > Where is NuVoc page? (Love it!) (Btw, unlike other noobs, I started with a > J folder which also had icons for 5 or 6 useful Jsoftware pages.) > > What are arguments to plot? Other options (like surface)? What is jwplot? > (Would have been worse had I not known about locals and z local). > > Where is Ix? (Why wasn't it in help?) > > Is Hall a verb that calls to other H* nouns? (I know Eric is not going to > resort to rape and paste programmimg!) How to distinguish verbs/nouns? How > to interpret result of nl? > > How do I restore/repeat the initial output I got when I first ran the app? > > Would a newcomer think that the wonderful two character J? commands were > part of the language? (I assume the initial caps are a thoughtful > concession to IOS text entry auto correct?) > > Why, unlike most all other IOS apps, does J seem to revert to a clean > session after a day or so? Conversely, how can I clear the session log when > I do want to? > > Has anyone else been making use of J for IOS? Why are there so damn few > reviews for it in the App Store? > > > On Feb 10, 2014, at 7:30 AM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > If you would put together a list of words (and perhaps phrases?) that > need > > definition, I (or we) would be happy to fill in the definitions, and > supply > > a few small examples. > > > > We might need to go several rounds of this to adequately satisfy you, but > > that's ok. > > > > Or maybe we have an adequate reference to refer you to? But if that were > > the case, I imagine the search engines would have found it for you. So > > instead let's maybe think about hashing out something that might be a > > suitable addition to the J wiki? > > > > Thanks, > > > > -- > > Raul > > > > > > > >> 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 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > 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
