Essays/Trains
The origins and evolution of trains.
References
- Remembering Ken Iverson -- Forks in the early days of J
- Phrasal Forms, APL88 -- Hook and fork paper from 1988
- Tacit Definition, APL91 -- Proof of completeness; translator from explicit to tacit; examples
- Capped Fork -- Regarding [: g h
- Ken Iverson Quotations and Anecdotes -- Regarding noun-verb-verb
- Hook Conjunction? -- Alternatives for hook
Origins
For years, Ken had struggled to find a way to write f+g as in calculus,
from the "scalar operators" in
Operators and Functions [5, section 4],
through the "til" operator in Practical Uses of a Model of APL [6] and
Rationalized APL [7, p. 18],
and finally forks. Forks are defined as follows:
(f g h) y ↔ (f y) g (h y)
x (f g h) y ↔ (x f y) g (x h y)
Moreover, (f g p q r) ↔ (f g (p q r)) . Thus to write f+g as in calculus, one writes f+g in J.
Proof of Completeness
Suppose s is a sentence on nouns x. and y. that results in a noun, and s makes no use of x or y as arguments to an adverb or conjunction. We define an adverb T which translates s into an equivalent tacit verb. Without loss of generality, assume that s contains no copulae; for if it does, d=.rhs (say), recursively replace instances of d by (rhs) .
If s contains no verbs, s T is:
[ if s is x
] if s is y
a"_ if s is a noun a which is neither x nor y (a"_ is a constant verb with value a and infinite rank)
Otherwise, let f be the root verb in s ; so s is either f q or p f q where p and q are sentences shorter than s and are (by induction) translatable by T . Thus s T is f@(q T) if s is f q and s T is (p T)f(q T) if s is p f q .
Example
We translate the sentence (^x) + (x^2) - (y^2) using the method described in the proof (using x and y instead of x and y which prevailed in 1991).
'(^x) + (x^2) - (y^2)' T
('^x' T) + ('(x^2) - (y^2)' T) + is the root verb
(^@('x' T)) + (('x^2' T) - ('y^2' T)) ^ and - are the root verbs
(^@[) + ((('x' T)^('2' T)) - (('y' T)^('2' T))) s is x; ^ are the root verbs
(^@[) + ((([^2"_) - (]^2"_))) s0 is x; s1 is y; constants
In this case terser tacit expressions are possible: ^@[ + *:@[ - *:@] or, even better, ^@[ + -&*:
See also
Contributed by Roger Hui.