On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 5:13 AM Elijah Stone <elro...@elronnd.net> wrote: > Why must the result of $y always be a vector? What would happen if we let > it be a higher-ranked array? What would that _mean_?
It would mean that many of the identities which we rely on, to understand what we're working with, would become invalid. Also, without use cases, it would mean that our initial attempts at implementing such a system would be largely useless. That said, I could imagine some applications of this concept to systems involving an array of machines -- a two dimensional shape array would have one item for the sub-array stored on one machine. A rank three array, here, would likely represent groupings of such machines. Note, however, that padding issues would make a mess of the implementation of this concept, unless the shape arrays were highly regular (which would remove most of the motivation for needing different shape items for different machines). (When working with multiple machines, the interfaces between machines take precedence. Failure modes and their analysis also become increasingly significant.) -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
