Personally, [. was removed during my "J lifetime", but before I'd developed the skills needed to take advantage of it.
More generally, I think one of the reasons it was removed is it hadn't see wide adoption. So I imagine its excision was less painful than the disinflection of argument names. But if [. were reinstated, along with the (parts of the) trains table needed to make it useful, you can be sure I'd be first in line to buy one. This is one of the many things I'd play with in the J source, if I had the time. -Dan -----Original Message----- From: programming-boun...@jsoftware.com [mailto:programming-boun...@jsoftware.com] On Behalf Of Raul Miller Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 10:08 AM To: Programming forum Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Challenge 7 March Bad Mess Or [. -- Raul On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 9:56 AM, Dan Bron <j...@bron.us> wrote: > The Wiki has a long memory: http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Scripts/Fixargs . > > (Fortunately for we tacit weirdos, this has never been an issue. Now, if we > changed the spelling of @ .... ) > > -Dan > > -----Original Message----- > From: programming-boun...@jsoftware.com > [mailto:programming-boun...@jsoftware.com] On Behalf Of Raul Miller > Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 9:45 AM > To: Programming forum > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Challenge 7 March Bad Mess > > Unfortunately, I do not have any such scripts. > > If they mattered to me, I have fixed them so long ago that I do not > remember the event. > > Perhaps it matters that I view programming as an activity rather like > inhaling. Inhaling is an important part of breathing, but if you > never exhale you will not do so well. > > Put differently, I think there is an activity related to programming > which involves discarding code that's not useful. Code is easy to > generate... > > Finally, one of the things I most value about J is that it's concise > enough that I can do useful transformations on bodies of code with > relatively low amounts of keyboarding. I can think of all sorts of > automated transforms, but ultimately it's my understanding that's the > valuable thing for me. > > -- > Raul > > > On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 4:54 AM, Linda Alvord <lindaalv...@verizon.net> wrote: >> For This Challenge Only! This is for Raul, Ric and others. You may respond >> immediately. The embargo is lifted. Work together, ask questions, compare >> strategies, ask for advice and share your code at will. >> >> Use whatever will work most efficiently. No holds barred. Do not hold back >> if you are a very experienced programmer, rather join in the fun. >> >> >> >> Here's the problem: design a function pw for powerwash. Apply pw to any >> legacy script which is a mess and made you mad when two changes were made. >> It is a script that you miss but you moved on without it because it took too >> much effort and you abandoned it. The errors all came from a small change of >> arguments x. becoming x and y. becoming y >> >> >> >> So here is what is needed. Apply powerwash to the offending .ijs >> >> >> >> pw 'legacymessedup.ijs' >> >> >> >> The function or several functions taken together will powerwash your code >> in four ways. >> >> >> >> 1. It will find all instances of x and replace them with xx >> >> 2. It will find all instances of y and replace them with yy >> >> 3. It will find all instances of x. and replace them with x >> >> 4. It will find all instances of y. and replace them with y >> >> >> >> This will not insure that your legacymessedup script will work. But it >> will prevent the madness of having to do it yourself every time. >> >> >> >> This one is for my own use and is beyond my skill or energy to tackle. I >> imagine there will be others out there who might appreciate it too. We >> thank you in advance. Also this may have been done since 2001 and I never >> saw it in which case we will move on to Challenge 8. >> >> >> >> Linda >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
