LOL. Fair question. Here’s another: if J adopted a style standard around ideograms (which are rendered vertically by default) for comments, would that on the one hand slightly increase (as a percentage) its reputation for obscurity among Western programmers but on the other dramatically increase its penetration in China (an enormous market)?
Seriously: I’m an amateur and maybe this goes away with expert status, but my own J is no longer readable-at-a-glance after a day or two. I’ve often wondered whether a J-friendly editor could act as a crutch* in that regard. Most programming languages are line-oriented in the sense that one comment per line is adequate. J is token-oriented in that each character speaks volumes and may deserve its own annotation. Typical (line-oriented) editors aren’t set up to support that gracefully. (I’m not telling you anything you don’t know; I imagine this discussion has come up before.) And, no, I don’t know what such an editor would look like beyond saying that it would be really freaking cool. As Wally once told the Pointy-Haired Boss, “It’s my job angrily to point out problems!” (Though to be clear, I’m actually perfectly happy. If I really can’t understand what I wrote, I just rewrite it from scratch. :-) ) Ed *Crutch n. A thing used for support or reassurance. May hold you back in the long term. Ed Sent from my iPad > On Apr 27, 2022, at 7:01 PM, Hauke Rehr <hauke.r...@uni-jena.de> wrote: > > What keeps you from writing your comments vertically‽ > >> Am 27.04.22 um 14:50 schrieb Ed Gottsman: >> If J were written vertically, it might be easier to comment. > > -- > ---------------------- > mail written using NEO > neo-layout.org > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
