NYCJUG/2011-05-10/AccessibleDictionary

Topic: making programs the easy way

Bjorn Helgason < gosinn@gmail.com > Apr 27 03:44AM -0700 ^

On the webpage http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/ControlNuVoc there is a start of alternative vocabulary. It is basically open for anyone to contribute.

The best thing is if non-technical people will also send in texts. They can send it here or to someone who passes the text on.

It is very hard for someone who has been around J for a long time to remember what the original most difficult barriers were and what is difficult. Some of us tend to send in so advanced stuff that it scares off those are thinking about simple initial attempts.

I am sure all they want to do is show the power of J and how brilliantly it is possible to solve and capture in a line or to what the beginner is using many pages of code to accomplish. I guess we all love the challenge to solve complex issues but it is also a challenge to explain the initial steps to a beginner.

I have sometimes thought about taking one item at a time from the vocabulary and explain it but I more or less always find it so trivial that I stop. Finding instances that might help others solve an issue is what we need.

Ian Clark < earthspotty@gmail.com > Apr 27 06:16PM +0100 ^

Thanks for reminding people about this, Björn. I thought I was going to have to write the rest of it myself :-)

"By popular request" -- it's a lowbrow version of Voc: http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/vocabul.htm . And it's got a name: "The Accessible Dictionary" (aka NuVoc).

The proper entry-portal for end-users will be: http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/NuVoc ...but as-yet most of the pages are stubs. They are laced-up with all the basic links, and just need content. Actually it's not all bad: many of the stubs need only slight variations on existing pages. Some of the trickiest primitives have been done. It's grunt-work, mainly... for all those primitives like Negate / Minus (-) which are rarely going to be accessed anyway. So it's worth a look right now.

Yes, you're right, anyone can contribute. Provided you ask Chris Burke for permission to edit the wiki. Then study some finished pages to get an idea of the format. See the "control page": http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/ControlNuVoc -which is where you can take charge of a page, and release it when you've done. Or you can email the example to me, and I'll stick it in.

Actually there are no "finished" pages: simple examples will always be welcome in the section(s) "Common Uses". You can supply a pet use without having to do the whole page.

Each page will have only the barest description of what the primitive does, with very simple examples. For a precise, if highly-compressed, definition there's still the original Vocabulary, which has a link on each page under the heading "See Also".

Thus, in: http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Vocabulary/gtco you'll see: Entry in the J Dictionary for >:

People regularly appeal on the forums for something like this, not aware that it's underway.