@Henry - I'm warming to your idea. The standard triple-Ranks as returned by b.0 is not appropriate. 'Cos monad and dyad are documented independently.
A suffix to the header: "operates on individual atoms" has the advantage of being self-explanatory. Like Wikipedia tags, it could be clickable to pop-up an expanded explanation of why this is important to know. Being the same for all pages (or a small number of choices) it is easy to implement. I need to play with the idea. On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > @Henry -- your argument did occur to me, just after I pressed the send > button... > > I think I agree with what you say, pivoted heavily on the word > "painlessly". > > If I'd been brutally honest with myself I'd have admitted that I'd been > working out how to implement Brian's suggestion and seen it would have been > awkward at this late stage. The feature should have been incorporated when > the original set of stubs was generated. It's a design failure that it > wasn't. > > I did try to anticipate the need to retrofit a new template to existing > content. But I wouldn't like to have to try it in practice. > > I conjecture that the bare Ranks, e.g. _ _ _ -is baffling to the novice. > Like all conjectures this needs proof (which I don't have and can't get). > The guiding light of NuVoc is to lean over backwards to avoid being > baffling. > > But something is needed -- and it needs to work as you prescribe, and to > be effective, else it isn't worth doing. I confess I don't know the answer. > > > On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:20 PM, Henry Rich <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Agreed that the important thing for NuVoc is to give the beginner what >> they need, in a form that they can understand without having to follow a >> trail. >> >> But asking a genuine beginner whether they need to see the ranks is like >> asking a congressman a question about economics, and just as likely to >> discover the right answer. >> >> Here's a proposal to consider: >> >> in http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Vocabulary/ltdot, for example, where >> we now have >> >> <. y (Floor) >> >> we could instead have >> >> <. y (Floor, operates on individual atoms) >> >> The 'operates on individual atoms' bit would link to a discussion of verb >> rank. >> >> By seeing the rank described verbally, right there on every verb, a >> beginner would notice this subtle difference between verbs, and would >> eventually be tempted to understand what it means. >> >> The questions posted to this Forum prove that you can't survive as a J >> coder without understanding rank. I think NuVoc should accept the mission >> of teaching the beginner that fact, as painlessly as possible. >> >> >> Henry Rich >> >> >> >> On 1/20/2014 10:47 AM, Ian Clark wrote: >> >>> @Brian - Thanks for your appreciation. It's encouraging. Throughout I've >>> had the niggling feeling that the J Dic was hard to improve on, and I was >>> adding little or no value. >>> >>> Unlike the J Dic, NuVoc doesn't show the Rank(s) of a verb. The original >>> idea was for it to do so. But I think that's advanced information for a >>> beginner, and best seen by clicking through to the J Dic via the "See >>> Also". >>> >>> Others will vehemently disagree, and I think I can predict who they'll >>> be. >>> >>> But maybe I'll come to see that a bold button in the same place on every >>> title line to click through to the Dic entry would be good, if not >>> essential. >>> >>> If anyone wants to go through all the verbs and add the Ranks to the >>> title >>> lines, I'm not going to throw a tantrum. Not if its done consistently, >>> and >>> right. >>> >>> Can we hear the authoritative voice of a genuine beginner about this? >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:45 AM, Brian Schott <[email protected] >>> >wrote: >>> >>> Ian, >>>> >>>> That is amazing. Thank you for that great resource. >>>> >>>> I don't know if I dare ask the following, but, here goes. Is there any >>>> way >>>> to add a feature -- I think it's called a tool-tip -- to the main page >>>> which would show the rank of each verb when someone hovers over the >>>> primitive? If so, would other folks use such a feature? >>>> >>>> -- >>>> (B=) >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> 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
