[Jprogramming] 2 f 3 f 4 f m

[Dan Bron]

Just so it's clear, I wasn't accusing R.E. Boss of plagiary, I was making a point by way of analogy.

And I agree with you about reinventing the wheel (that's what the paragraph about Perl was trying to convey).  I don't think that issue is limited to sequential machines though.  J programs are shorter than most other languages'; the set of all short programs is smaller than the set of all long programs.

Hence, even with a random program generator, repetition in J will be more common than repetition in a less concise language.  That repetition is even more evident in directed discussions about frequently encountered problems amongst a similarly-minded community.  Add the fact that each primitive in J is designed to a purpose and well spelled out, and you lots of round wheels.

Interesting that you used the term "sequential machine", though. While browsing the Forum archives for mentions of  \.&.|.  , I came across

   http://www.jsoftware.com/pipermail/general/2000-July/003745.html

Which specifically correlates  ~/\. (&.|.)  with finite state machines.  That made me wonder if dyadic  ;:  (finite state machine) could provide an amenable solution.

I can't come up with anything even close; can anyone else?  Or is a "sequential machine" not the same as an FSM?  Is it more akin to a Turing machine (i.e. a version of  ;:  that can be instructed to move backwards)?

-Dan