I expect that your ... could be made to work in explicit definitions, but it would be a bit of work (getting error reporting right might be a bit of a headache, and the interactive debugger would probably have to be partially rebuilt to work with this concept). Plus, of course, the actual implementation.
I don't suppose you are volunteering? Thanks, -- Raul On Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 3:50 AM Jan-Pieter Jacobs <janpieter.jac...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I actually was intending for quite a while to propose an extension to > comments along the lines of the suggestions in this thread: > to use ... as line continuation indicator that turns everything after it up > to and including the next line break to be considered comment, and still > considers the line to continue (Matlab does this the same, IIRC). It could > be thought of as a non-line-breaking version of NB. . > > For instance (silly example): > > avg =: ... averag operator > +/ ... sum > % ... divided by > # ... length > > Now, it's certainly overkill for this tiny example, but I think it could be > valuable for longer trains. > > Advantages of ... : > - not in use at the moment > - clear meaning (i.e. more code to follow) > - fits in with J word formation rules > - easy for communication to non-J experts > - length the same as NB. > > Jan-Pieter > > On Thu, 28 Apr 2022, 08:16 Hauke Rehr, <hauke.r...@uni-jena.de> wrote: > > > The LEO editor might be a good fit. > > And yes, it’s really freaking (cool). > > A script could generate the actual .ijs from snippets that are well > > documented and those snippets may well be single J tokens. > > > > Am 28.04.22 um 08:10 schrieb Ed Gottsman: > > > 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 > > > > -- > > ---------------------- > > 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
