CompuServe Messages

Ed, <C is a very powerful language, but it is also very easy to write very cryptic code.> My programming style is the result of years using APL. I became accustommed to having all the code visible at once. One of the first programs I wrote in APL was "An Adaptive Query System," a program that learned by holding conversations with users. It maintained a data base containing what it knew. It was able to recognize phrases that were similar to those in the data base. It was done (by a beginner) in about 40 lines. With APL, < re-write from scratch > is the accepted practice. The programmer, however, must provide comments that formally describe what a routine does. I am looking at a 5 line APL program right now. The output from this routine is computed on a line containing 24 characters. I'll try to give you an idea of what that line looks like: R<1 "drop" (Z "or" 1 "rotate about the first dimension" Z < V "not eq" ' ')/V<' ',V "<" is assigment (arrow pointing left), used 3 times There are no blanks, except between single quote marks "rotate about the first dimension" is a circle with a vertical line through it "not eq" is an equal sign with a slash through it "or" looks like a small V "drop" is an arrow pointing down The comments describe this routine as: Deleting extra blanks from a character vector (the input is "V", the output is "R") where extra blanks are: – any blanks following another blank, – any blanks preceeding the first non-blank character – any blanks following the last non-blank character The other four lines are comments and code to check that the input is a vector containing character data. <"a write-only language"> Good one! <Assuming that your question in particles_orbiting of why does G==1 work is NOT rhetorical> Boy, you are really digging in. That was a reminder that I still had to check that my guess, G==1, was correct. Thanks for saving me time! Ed K.