-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mike Powell <[email protected]> writes:
> Why not allow J users to use Unicode names? The J language can keep > the reserved names it uses now. Just let the users experiment. Surely, > if they make use of this and run into problems transferring code or > commentary back and forth, that's their look out; not something that J > Software Inc has to address. After all, Unicode data is being > transferred back and forth all the time in other contexts. The issues > are not special to J. Perhaps, by letting the users experiment with > different skins, something interesting and useful will emerge. Mike, I'm all for freedom, but I have a serious caution here: Please think carefully, and then leave well enough alone. Why? First, I was involved years ago in early thinking at one company about localizing software products. I ran into attempts others had made to "localize" things like Pascal, for example, by translating all the keywords into various languages. That takes a standard language and makes it nonstandard. That requires you translate each and every program when you move between platforms. It was a disaster that was thankfully dropped early on. Pascal is a good example for another reason. Many vendors seemed to want to augment their versions for commercial reasons, unfortunately. That meant they'd have a standard Pascal plus a few features people would want to use that would lock them into that vendor. That messed up reusability. Even simpler things make trouble. For example, the x. -> x conversion challenge still crops up occasionally, although I guess I have to admit that the language is not worse off for the change. :-) If we make transliterations or translations or conversions such as that, we make code reuse very hard. J is so concise, though, that code reuse is eminently practical, for I can learn phrases with immense utility simply by reading and experimenting. It would be a shame to lose that. It's been my experience with J that most things make great sense after I grok them better. I don't know what you're doing, but I encourage you not to think of J as a dialect of APL and translate mentally back and forth but simply to think directly in J. Bill - -- Bill Harris http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/ Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 374-1845 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkolzdUACgkQ3J3HaQTDvd+tlACgg2mh8fXLdFFnvUUQWb1xz3Nv ijgAn1HyIG7BlFWF+3IdRCceiT6gDjLk =dDS5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
