Watching this with interest, due to my typesetting task of "At Play
With J" Edn 2. (See JChat).

It's the considered opinion of BAA Vector typesetters (not just me)
that (in-line) J is a swine to typeset. APL is relatively benign.
Periods and colons are unmistakable. A-Z and numerals are sufficiently
different from the narrative fonts in use by Vector (Book Antiqua).
There's 50 years of experience with in-line APL.

I haven't seen a proposal yet for a J font which overcomes the
problems. APWJ Edn1 & 2 uses APL385 Unicode for J code as well as APL,
to recruit some of the subtle benefits of in-line APL. This is based
on Comic Sans. I myself when editing the definitive Word document have
an in-line-J style with a yellow background. The colour is removed
just prior to generating the camera-ready PDF. We're tempted to leave
the colour in the PDF -- where it will come out mid-grey.

Alas, incoming source material often lacks clear delineation of the
in-line J code -- or if present it can't be trusted. It's a
compounding factor that the back-tick used by Moinmoin to delineate
in-line J is also a valid J character.

Ian Clark


2009/5/30 Björn Helgason <[email protected]>:
> =.
> It could be an idea to show the operations with very large fonts and
> separated by blanks in teaching material so the DOTS will stand out well
>
> 2009/5/30 Devon McCormick <[email protected]>
>
>> On the other hand, it would be nice to have a display font for J with the
>> small "dot" characters (period and colon) more prominently emphasized.
>>
>> On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 12:33 AM, Roger Hui <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> > I believe that "The Design of J", if it had been written,
>> > would have frowned on such font tricks, having learned
>> > from the bitter experience with the special characters
>> > in APL.
>> >
>> ...
>>
>>
>> --
>> Devon McCormick, CFA
>> ^me^ at acm.
>> org is my
>> preferred e-mail
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Björn Helgason, Verkfræðingur
> Fugl&Fiskur ehf,
> Þerneyjarsundi 23, Hraunborgum
> Po Box 127,801 Selfoss ,
> t-póst: [email protected]
> gsm: +3546985532
> Landslags og skrúðgarðagerð, gröfuþjónusta
> http://groups.google.com/group/J-Programming
>
>
> Tæknikunnátta höndlar hið flókna, sköpunargáfa er meistari einfaldleikans
>
> góður kennari getur stigið á tær án þess að glansinn fari af skónum
>         /|_      .-----------------------------------.
>        ,'  .\  /  | Með léttri lund verður        |
>    ,--'    _,'   | Dagurinn í dag                     |
>   /       /       | Enn betri en gærdagurinn  |
>  (   -.  |        `-----------------------------------'
>  |     ) |         (\_ _/)
>  (`-.  '--.)       (='.'=)   ♖♘♗♕♔♙
>  `. )----'        (")_(") ☃☠
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm

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