I have been bemused by the discussion of tacit coding.
Having some time ago been forced from APL to J and
being utterly delighted by the tacit style, I taught
it at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
See "Tacit J and I" in Vector Vol.23 No.3
(www.vector.org.uk/archive/v233/tji.htm) which gave
the background to the series of tutorial essays I used
for Honours classes in "Functional Calculation" and
which started appearing in that Vector and are continuing,
despite publicity to the contrary.
My tack was that the tacit style is the purest imaginable
(to me at any rate) mode of functional expression and my
experience was that the students agreed and coped very
well, though they always went back to what they saw as
the more expressive (I disagreed) coding styles as in
Basic (ouch!) and C (shrug!) for example.
The core issue seems to be whether you are tackling
a calculation or facing up to a massive system. I held
the opinion that tacit J was basically calculation and
that connecting to files and databases was peripheral.
However, there are problems in calculating with tacit J.
I recently put an essay in my Computer column describing
a device I called the formulator (see
eprints.utas.edu.au/9474) that was based om my experience
teaching tacit J (though that essay doesn't explicitly say
so).
What I proposed for the formulator would take the familiar
calculator and take it a level higher, from arithmetic
to algebra. I have another essay explaining the
formulator in more detail for the APL/J world and this
awaits proofing and publication (but see
www.vector.org.uk/?vol=24&no=4&art=holmes (Stephen: I trust
this isn't out of line; it seemed a good time to expose it
to J people)).
My motive was to provide a simple tool for people learning
and teaching mathematics at school, and the striving for
simplicity is the reason for some deviations from,
and subsetting of, APL/J. However, adoption of the
formulator would make transition to APL/J quite simple
for formulator users.
Should anyone wish to produce a formulator I would be
delighted to cooperate, but I don't feel up to doing it
myself alone).
Neville Holmes, P.O. Box 2412, Bakery Hill 3354, Victoria
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