Thanks!!
Now I have learned that your iX is my "iThing" or "i*".
Now I understand the "why" of a bullet command. 

> On Feb 10, 2014, at 3:57 PM, Eric Iverson <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> bullet commands are only relevant to the iPhone/iPod/iPad devices.
> 
> These are touch screen devices so don't have ctrl key functionality.
> 
> Everything I said in my earlier message is relevant only to an iX (as
> listed avbove) device.
> 
> You would make use of a bullet command if you had some verb or
> expression  that you used freguently with different arguments that a
> shortcut was warranted (as typing on these devices is a bit tedious).
> 
>> On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 3:21 PM, Jim Russell <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Thanks, but...
>> 
>> You have once or twice before tried to explain bullet commands to me, but I 
>> remain confused. I'm sure it must be me. Some follow on questions:
>> 
>> Why do you refer to them as "iX bullet commands"?
>> 
>> Which ctrl keyboard shortcuts are you duplicating? Ctrl-v, -v, -x?
>> 
>> I had gone through the instructions, defined the function, ran it (with a 
>> string argument) and got the result I would expect from i.#y, but have no 
>> idea what use I should make of that. (Which is why I wondered if it was just 
>> a way to avoid having to enclose a string argument in quotes.) Might be 
>> handy if I was using voice translation to fill the input area, but beyond 
>> that I'm stuck for a practical use case.
>> 
>> Sorry...
>> 
>>> On Feb 10, 2014, at 2:31 PM, Eric Iverson <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> As a small answer to one of your questions:
>>> 
>>> iX bullet commands provide some of the fucntionality of ctrl keyboard 
>>> shortcuts.
>>> 
>>> for help on bulltet commands:
>>> 
>>> bullet refers to the button to the right of the input area with the big dot
>>> 
>>> press the ? button
>>> see Hbullet in the list of available helps
>>> either type Hbullet in the entry area and press return
>>> 
>>> or
>>> 
>>> tap the line with Hbullet and press return once to recall and once to run
>>> 
>>> try the example in the help
>>> 
>>> that is,
>>>  ev_bullet_abc_jevents=: 3 :  'i.#y' NB. handler for abc ... bullet
>>> 
>>> then type: abc 5
>>> and press the bullet button
>>> 
>>> Hope this helps with bullet.
>>> 
>>>> 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
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 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

Reply via email to