Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!torn!csd.unb.ca!UNBVM1.CSD.UNB.CA
From: WRK0000 <WRK0@UNB.CA>
Subject: APL2 HELP WORKSPACE
Message-ID: <19AUG92.16132706.0052@UNBVM1.CSD.UNB.CA>
Lines: 51
Sender: usenet@UNB.CA
Organization: The University of New Brunswick
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 18:56:15 GMT


 Can you  remember whether  cosine is  1-circle or  2-circle?
 Can you remember how to run  your system's quad function for
 writing error handlers, or even what it is called?

 I can't:  So I made myself a "help" workspace.

 A help workspace in APL is easy, easy.  Text pertaining to a
 topic is put  in a character array or a  function whose name
 is the  topic.   Type COSINE  to find out  about "2-circle".
 Having a  function demonstrate  its topic  on the  fly is  a
 nifty touch, easy to do, and helps avoid mistakes.   Easy to
 add topics:   The name of the new character matrix goes into
 the symbol table automatically.

 My workspace is about IBM mainframe APL2 in ditto.

** Something I did wrong:
 I thoughtlessly thought like a programmer,  and didn't leave
 well enough alone,  but wrote a program  -- a query parser.
 Quad-LX  invokes  this  superfluous   parser  program  which
 intercepts and processes your  query.   Though this provides
 for queries  in the APL  alphabet,  in afterthought  I doubt
 t'was worth the price in complication.   If your word be not
 there, the parser tries to match leading letters with a word
 it knows;   still not worth the  price as a  quad-NL command
 would probably get  you there without the parser  which is a
 program and so can and will go wrong.

** Something I did right:
 There are  synonyms.   Help  systems that  help only  if you
 query according to their ideas  of proper vocabulary abound.
 (Ever desperately try OFF, LOGOFF, BYE, STOP, END, QUIT, and
 DROP DEAD, to escape a system which wants  Q() ,  accepts no
 substitutes,  and whose supposed help facility only replies,
 "topic unknown", unless you specifically query "Q()", which,
 if you already know,  you need not ask?)   My  help tells of
 )OFF when queried with STOP.

 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 Anyway,  the help workspace exists.   I'd like to send it to
 people who would give it a good  home and maybe add topics I
 left out, but I have no idea how to ship APL over the wires.
 Only a masochist retypes from  printed copy.   (Among topics
 missing from  workspace HELP  is how to  port APL,   so this
 message is itself an implied request for help.)


 William Knight / University of New Brunswick / Canada

