Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!torn!spool.mu.edu!uunet!portal!quadsys!roland
From: roland@quadsys.com (Roland Besserer)
Subject: Re: J is NOT APL (was Re: Interpreter advice sought.)
Message-ID: <C1K1GK.39q@quadsys.com>
Organization: QUAD Systems
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
References: <1993Jan25.144021.22129@csi.uottawa.ca>
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 08:12:20 GMT
Lines: 60

cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne) writes:
: In article <C1EIJn.I3@quadsys.com> roland@quadsys.com (Roland Besserer) writes:
: >hui@fid.morgan.com (Roger Hui) writes:
: >: There are some simple tests of this assertion.  For example,
: >: try posting the text of an APL function to this news group, 
: >: using the system editor on your machine to construct the message.
: >
: >This is certainly not a valid point. To hopelessly confuse the syntax
: >and limit it to agonizingly obscure sequences of punctuation
: >characters for the sake of being able to post verbose sources is
: >nonsense. 
: 
: Is this an invalid point because you don't WANT it to be a valid
: point, or is it invalid because the communication of source code is
: unimportant?
: 
: It appears that you're implying that it is relatively unimportant
: whether or not source code can be made portable.  Much of the REST of
: the world thinks that portability is HIGHLY important.
: 

The ability to upload/view program sources with a standard text edit
is unrelated to the issue of portability. Portability simply means the
existance of a functional and syntactic standard available and adhered
to on diverse hardware/software environments. If current communications
software imposses restrictions on the transmission and viewing of program
sources utilizing anything more than 7-bit ASCII, there is always the
simply solution to use an encoding scheme, transfer the code in question
and decode it. Yes, this apporach is inconvenient, but it should bot
be a constraint in the design of a language. 
 
: The syntax is most definitely NOT limited to "agonizingly obscure
: sequences of punctuation characters" - it is quite possible (and can
: be useful) to RENAME the various syntax components.  On a system that
: has a sufficiently verbose character set that, say, included the APL
: character set, you could assign the commands to the appropriate
: character.
: 

A valid point. 

: On the other hand, J allows one to apply power similar to that of APL
: in virtually any environment, whether it has "funny characters" or
: not.  Moreover, it allows you to make applications portable.
: 

Portability is never really a problem with an infant language. Should
J proliferate it will face the same portability problems as any other
language.

: Yes, it tends to look like "line noise".  So does APL, to the
: uninitiated.

Here I most strongly disagree with you. APLs character set and nomenclature
are easily recognizable as they are based on mathimatical symbolism 
familiar to most of us. J simply overloads ASCII punctuation characters.
-- 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roland Besserer          QUAD Systems, Santa Cruz             roland@quadsys.com
