I tried this - it didn't work- but if I do sminfo a=: x foo y
it works.
On 15/01/2014 6:51 PM, bill lam wrote:
sminfo is a cover verb, it will display in a popup box or just
on the session pane depending on you are running on gui or
jconsole. If you want to preserve the "result" try using the
hook ([ sminfo)
Ср, 15 янв 2014, Don Kelly писал(а):
This looks great -in that the listings do describe things fairly well
as most are simple and useful. However
in some cases things are still unclear.
an example is sminfo
It appears that it simply shows a result in a separate box but
unless one uses sminfo a=: foo y , vs sminfo foo y , the result is
lost. so
how does this become of any more use that smoutput a=: foo y or ]a=:
foo y ? or even foo y ?
What would be nice would be something like sminput which would allow
entry of data in the form
x=: sminput data
similar to what is available in APL.
It may be there but I haven't found it.
Don Kelly
On 15/01/2014 1:43 PM, Ian Clark wrote:
@jasmine - it's hard to know how to do better than
edit 'stdlib'
or for a particular verb:
edit 'splitstring'
because the scripts are well-commented. And they have the vast advantage of
keeping themselves up-to-date -- a biiiiiiiig problem with jwiki.
The contents of _z_ are documented here (mostly):
http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/stdlib.ijs
but there's no corresponding:
http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/strings.ijs
--perhaps there should be?
I think it boils down to: where *would* a newbie expect to look? That's a
function of his/her imagination. The jwiki is littered with half-hearted
attempts to address this problem:
http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Guides
http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Guides#faqs
http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Guides/Getting%20Started
http://www.jsoftware.com/help
Perhaps the best of the Guides needs a link adding to the top line of the
last of these?
There's no substitute for a good newbie who's thick-skinned enough to ask
the dumb questions. Hard to find and worth far more than diamonds.
On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 2:50 AM, Pascal Jasmin <godspiral2...@yahoo.ca>wrote:
actually a documentation effort on the z profile names would be quite
helpful.
________________________________
From: Don Guinn <dongu...@gmail.com>
To: Programming forum <programm...@jsoftware.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 4:15:08 PM
Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Code clarity
So many names in the z locale. I wonder what that looks like to a newbe.
Take a name like splitstring. Got a pretty good clue from its name. Where
is it defined? Exactly how can one use it? Easy enough for someone familiar
with J to just look at its definition then play with it a little. Maybe go
find the script in which it is defined and look for comments. But a new
user would probably just give up and not use it. But if there were a
description of its usage somewhere it would e many times larger than the
definition.
For one experienced with J such documentation is unneeded. But what about a
newbe? They are the ones who need a jump start so they don't become
frustrated.
On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 8:01 AM, Raul Miller <rauldmil...@gmail.com>
wrote:
I have also struggled with documentation, and not only in the context
of apl and/or j.
I sometimes wonder, though, how important it really is. So much of the
skill of computer programming comes through seeing the code through
experimentation and seeing both the code and its variants in action.
Quite often, I find that the code makes a lot more sense when I see
what it is doing. (And, all too often, that winds up being "nothing
useful" so then I wonder if there are other cases where it would be
useful.)
Anyways, writing documentation is a mentally and socially intensive
task, and I have the utmost respect for people that can do it well.
And good documentation gives valuable perspectives and insight into
the underlying code. But... it's a struggle for me.
Thanks,
--
Raul
On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:47 AM, Don Guinn <dongu...@gmail.com> wrote:
It's always been a mystery to me why it is OK to spend several hours
(or
sometimes days) analyzing several pages of FORTRAN or C but when
reading
a
few lines of APL or J which do the same thing I must grasp it in a few
minutes or I start feeling overwhelmed. But I have written similar
"run-ons". Why? Because I can set up test data and add a little at a
time
to a line or a few lines, executing it and looking at the results as I
go.
I have to force myself to break that monster up into more readable
chunks.
I can't do that in other languages as I have to compile or whatever,
So I
tend to write all the code then start debugging.
Then comes documenting. I put a brief description of what it's for and
expected arguments. Then add references and why the code does what it
does.
I try not to repeat describing what the code does. But then I end out
with
comments many time larger than the code. That just seems weird!
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