I don't know if there is anything to be gained by rehashing this argument, as I
failed in the past, but I will try one more time:
The dictionary states that x u@v y may be substituted for u x v y. In fact, x
u@v y may not be freely substituted for u x v y, because there are cases where
such a substitution would change semantics.
That the dictionary states something incorrect is a bug in it.
On Mon, 27 Jun 2022, Raul Miller wrote:
On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 3:30 PM 'Pascal Jasmin' via Programming
<programm...@jsoftware.com> wrote:
You have brought up a bug in dicitionary, that has survived to J6.02
Is a characteristic a bug if it's by design?
The dictionary writeup on verbs --
https://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/dictb.htm -- describes the
features of verbs which are common to all verbs. This is information
which would need to be repeated on every dictionary page for the
dictionary to completely describe the characteristics of those verbs
on each page. (And, venturing partially into this territory is why
NuVoc pages tend to be rather long.)
Anyways, this writeup on verbs includes this text:
"Finally, each verb has three intrinsic ranks: monadic, left, and
right. The definition of any verb need specify only its behaviour on
cells of the intrinsic ranks, and the extension to arguments of higher
rank occurs systematically. The ranks of a verb merely place upper
limits on the ranks of the cells to which it applies; its domain may
include arguments of lower rank."
That said, I think that each of the dictionary's verb pages should
explicitly state that the verb is a verb, and that statement should
link back to this dictb.htm which details what a verb is.
In other words, where
https://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/d620.htm currently has:
<table width=100%><tr>
<td align=left width=33%><b><font size=+2>Atop</font></b></td>
<td align=center width=50%><font face="Courier New" size=+3>u@v
mv lv rv</font></td>
<td align=right width=17%><b><font size=+2></font></b>
</tr></table>
I think it should have something like:
<table width=100%><tr>
<td align=left width=23%><b><font size=+2>Atop</font></b></td>
<td align=left width=10%><a href="dictb.htm">verb</a></td>
<td align=center width=50%><font face="Courier New" size=+3>u@v
mv lv rv</font></td>
<td align=right width=17%><b><font size=+2></font></b>
</tr></table>
... and all of the other dictionary pages describing primitives should
have a similar reference link.
And, that said, note that I am focusing here on utility rather than
appearance -- someone with more of an eye towards appearance may be
able to take this general approach and come up with something more
appealing which:
(*) Explicitly states, in the definition, the type of word being defined, and
(*) Links that type statement to the corresponding page which spells
out what this means in the context of the language definition.
And... that said... the omission of this kind of detail could be
considered a bug (though there's probably a better way of describing
this kind of problem).
Thanks,
--
Raul
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