Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!torn!utnut!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!gumby!ursa!calvin!uther!abalje47
From: abalje47@uther.calvin.edu (Alan Baljeu)
Subject: Re: Notation on the Net
Message-ID: <abalje47.734489015@uther>
Sender: news@calvin.edu (The Annoying News Pseudo-User)
Nntp-Posting-Host: uther
Organization: Calvin College
References: <9304102000.AA02783@monashee.sfu.ca>
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1993 00:43:35 GMT
Lines: 71

seary@sfu.ca writes:

>I think there are two questions here:
>  Is J notation an acceptable substitute for APL notation on the net?
>  Is J defining the direction that APL should go in future developement?
>I only want to tackle the first one, thanks.

>  J has developed away from even Dictionary APL so that it is no longer
>an acceptable substitute. It can still be enjoyable to translate some algo-  
>rithm expressed in J (Vx.y) into APL[2 or II], but in some cases it
>gets a bit mind-bending. Even J users have problems with this one:
>witness the amount of discussion on how to use } (amend: now different enough
>from Dic APL that I gave up trying to translate Hui's great "..uses of
>{ and }..." paper.) Wait til they get to |: (cant: now also
>different). I suspect this is behind some of the controversy: if one
>could just translate J into APL (automatically?), who could complain?

I believe it ought to be a priority to determine conversions between 
APL text and J text.  If someone with the time and knowledge of J
and APL (in its many variations) we could gain much benefit from a 
PostScript chart detailing simple conversions.  For many there is a direct
correspondence Im sure.  Others would require a fairly sophisticated idiom.
(the fork would be difficult(is it possible for a monadic operator
to derive a dyadic operator from a verb?), shape would be easy.)  I really
don't know how much work that would take, but it has been done for much 
more complicated languages.  But then programs could be written in one
language and converted to the other.  Write APL, convert, post.  Readers
could then have a reverse converter (decryption?), and J users could use
the posting as is.  As well, I imagine that J users could gain access
to the vast libraries of APL software already there (Toronto Toolkit even?),
and APL readers could use the J code that is often posted here.
(I don't really know how much of this is feasible, I'm only hoping.)

>   Second, (begging the question dept.) do we need a substitute? I
>took a look at a couple of other newsgroups where one would expect
>notation to be a problem: sci.math.* (a completely unscientific sample from
>among thousands of articles). What I saw was a pastiche of:
>   TeX (e.g., \int for integral)    2     2
>   typographical tricks (dy/dx, or x  +  y , or u    - u       ,etc...
>                                                 [n]    [n-1]
>   fragments of C, FORTRAN, Pascal (undoubtedly containing typos)
>   LOTS of pointers to articles in print, articles in TeX or PostScript
>    camera-ready format, or executable code (the last two with internet
>    addresses for ftp-ing).
[...]
> As for the last bit, must we insist that
> the code fragments we send over internet be *EXECUTABLE*? It can usually
> be made clear (by context, which is why I hesitate to give examples) what
> one means using a pastiche of typographical tricks (oh, all right:
>  +/"c[2]A     NB. sum each rowsof A -- I know it's a stupid example)
>  or by using TeX-style escape sequences (I've seen this used here, too).

We needn't insist, but it certainly is nicer to have execuatable code.  It
saves much time to people who might want to execute it.  Most of the
discussions in sci.math are not related to computer execution, but human
understanding.  And people are much more flexible about their languages.
Also, everyone there has a common background of mathematics with a common
general language style, and so can understand the differences.  I'm not
sure the people here are fluent in both J and APL which is why it could
be really important to bridge that communication gap.  Except for the 
language, I believe we're all interested in the same things here.

>    Speaking of misusing bandwidth...
>    Comments?
>                                 A.
Just those, for now.
Alan Baljeu

--
			 Alan Baljeu
abalje47@ursa.calvin.edu
