Mr. Kim -

I disagree.  A language like J benefits tremendously from weak-typing and
the equivalence of empty arrays is an outcome of this, just like the
numerical equivalence of other objects which differ internally, e.g.

   datatype -.1
boolean
   datatype 1.1-1.1
floating
   (-.1)-:1.1-1.1
1

Obviously, we have a simple way to get at "internal" information, like
type.  However, it's much more useful to hide internal differences like that
for comparison purposes.  In my view, the preference of many computer
scientists for strong-typing is misguided because, as a practical matter, it
complicates things unnecessarily.

Regards,

Devon

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 4:25 AM, June Kim <[email protected]> wrote:

>   '' ;&datatype I.0
> +-------+-------+
> |literal|integer|
> +-------+-------+
>
> It seems like there are different emptiness for every datatype but
> they all match same. I think it's more natural they don't match.
>
> On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 5:08 PM, June Kim <[email protected]> wrote:
> >   ''-: I. 0
> > 1
> >   {. ''
> >
> >   {. I.0
> > 0
> >
> > Shouldn't '' -:&{. I.0 be true, given ''-:I.0?
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
>



-- 
Devon McCormick, CFA
^me^ at acm.
org is my
preferred e-mail
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