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authorMarshall Lochbaum <mwlochbaum@gmail.com>2021-07-16 18:23:52 -0400
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-<p>The reason operations and namespaces are called &quot;mutable&quot; is that the values obtained from them—by calling an operation on particular arguments or reading a field from a namespace—may change over the course of the program. This property is caused by variable modification <code><span class='Gets'>↩</span></code>, which can directly change a namespace field, or change the behavior of an operation that uses the modified variable. This means that a program that doesn't include <code><span class='Gets'>↩</span></code> won't have such changes in behavior. However, there will still be an observable difference between immutable data and the mutable types: code that creates a mutable value (for example, a block function <code><span class='Brace'>{</span><span class='Value'>𝕩</span><span class='Brace'>}</span></code>) creates a different one each time, so that two different instances don't match (<code><span class='Function'>≡</span></code>) each other. Data values created at different times may match, but mutable values never will.</p>
+<p>The reason operations and namespaces are called &quot;mutable&quot; is that the values obtained from them—by calling an operation on particular arguments or reading a field from a namespace—may change over the course of the program. This property is caused by variable modification <code><span class='Gets'>↩</span></code>, which can directly change a namespace field, or change the behavior of an operation that uses the modified variable. This means that a program that doesn't include <code><span class='Gets'>↩</span></code> won't have such changes in behavior. However, there will still be an observable difference between immutable data and the mutable types: code that creates a mutable value (for example, a block function <code><span class='Brace'>{</span><span class='Value'>𝕩</span><span class='Brace'>}</span></code>) creates a different one each time, so that two different instances don't <a href="match.html">match</a> (<code><span class='Function'>≡</span></code>) each other. Data values created at different times may match, but mutable values never will.</p>
<p>An array is considered immutable because its shape, and what elements it contains, cannot change. An array has no identity outside these properties (and possibly its fill element), so an array with a different shape or different elements would simply be a different array. However, any element of an array could be mutable, in which case the behavior of the array would change with respect to the operation of selecting that element and calling it or accessing a field.</p>
<h2 id="data-types">Data types</h2>
-<p>Data types—numbers, characters, and arrays—are more like &quot;things&quot; than &quot;actions&quot;. If called as a function, a value of one of these types simply returns itself. Data can be uniquely represented, compared for equality, and ordered using BQN's array ordering; in contrast, determining whether two functions always return the same result can be undecidable. For arrays, these properties apply only if there are no operations inside. We might say that &quot;data&quot; in BQN refers to numbers, characters, and arrays of data.</p>
+<p>Data types—numbers, characters, and arrays—are more like &quot;things&quot; than &quot;actions&quot;. If called as a function, a value of one of these types simply returns itself. Data can be uniquely represented, compared for equality, and ordered using BQN's <a href="order.html#array-ordering">array ordering</a>; in contrast, determining whether two functions always return the same result can be undecidable. For arrays, these properties apply only if there are no operations inside. We might say that &quot;data&quot; in BQN refers to numbers, characters, and arrays of data.</p>
<h3 id="numbers">Numbers</h3>
<p>The BQN spec allows for different numeric models to be used, but requires there to be only one numeric type from the programmer's perspective: while programs can often be executed faster by using limited-range integer types, there is no need to expose these details to the programmer. Existing BQN implementations are based on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE-754">double-precision floats</a>, like Javascript or Lua.</p>
<h3 id="characters">Characters</h3>
<p>A character in BQN is always a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode">Unicode</a> code point. BQN does not use encodings such as UTF-8 or UTF-16 for characters, although it would be possible to store arrays of integers or characters that correspond to data in these encodings. Because every code point corresponds to a single unit in UTF-32, BQN characters can be thought of as UTF-32 encoded.</p>
-<p>Addition and subtraction treat characters as an <a href="http://videocortex.io/2018/Affine-Space-Types/">affine space</a> relative to the linear space of numbers. This means that:</p>
+<p>Addition and subtraction <a href="arithmetic.html#character-arithmetic">treat</a> characters as an <a href="http://videocortex.io/2018/Affine-Space-Types/">affine space</a> relative to the linear space of numbers. This means that:</p>
<ul>
<li>A number can be added to or subtracted from a character.</li>
<li>Two characters can be subtracted to get the distance between them—a number.</li>
</ul>
<p>Other linear combinations such as adding two characters or negating a character are not allowed. You can check whether an application of <code><span class='Function'>+</span></code> or <code><span class='Function'>-</span></code> on numbers and characters is allowed by applying the same function to the &quot;characterness&quot; of each value: <code><span class='Number'>0</span></code> for a number and <code><span class='Number'>1</span></code> for a character. The result will be a number if this application gives <code><span class='Number'>0</span></code> and a character if this gives <code><span class='Number'>1</span></code>, and otherwise the operation is not allowed.</p>
<h3 id="arrays">Arrays</h3>
-<p>A BQN array is a multidimensional arrangement of data. This means it has a certain <em>shape</em>, which is a finite list of natural numbers giving the length along each axis, and it contains an <em>element</em> for each possible <em>index</em>, which is a choice of one natural number that's less than each axis length in the shape. The total number of elements, or <em>bound</em>, is then the product of all the lengths in the shape. The shape may have any length including zero, and this shape is known as the array's <em>rank</em>. An array of rank 0, which always contains exactly one element, is called a <em>unit</em>, while an array of rank 1 is called a <em>list</em> and an array of rank 2 is called a <em>table</em>.</p>
-<p>Each array—empty or nonempty—has an inferred property called a <em>fill</em>. The fill either indicates what element should be used to pad an array, or that such an element is not known and an error should result. Fills are used by Take (<code><span class='Function'>↑</span></code>) and the two Nudge functions (<code><span class='Function'>»«</span></code>).</p>
+<p>A BQN array is a multidimensional arrangement of data. This means it has a certain <a href="shape.html"><em>shape</em></a>, which is a finite list of natural numbers giving the length along each axis, and it contains an <em>element</em> for each possible <a href="indices.html"><em>index</em></a>, which is a choice of one natural number that's less than each axis length in the shape. The total number of elements, or <em>bound</em>, is then the product of all the lengths in the shape. The shape may have any length including zero, and this shape is known as the array's <em>rank</em>. An array of rank 0, which always contains exactly one element, is called a <em>unit</em>, while an array of rank 1 is called a <em>list</em> and an array of rank 2 is called a <em>table</em>.</p>
+<p>Each array—empty or nonempty—has an inferred property called a <em>fill</em>. The fill either indicates what element should be used to pad an array, or that such an element is not known and an error should result. Fills can be used by <a href="take.html">Take</a> (<code><span class='Function'>↑</span></code>), the two <a href="shift.html">Nudge</a> functions (<code><span class='Function'>»«</span></code>), <a href="pick.html">First</a> (<code><span class='Function'>⊑</span></code>), and <a href="reshape.html">Reshape</a> (<code><span class='Function'>⥊</span></code>).</p>
<p>Arrays are value types (or immutable), so that there is no way to &quot;change&quot; the shape or elements of an array. An array with different properties is a different array. As a consequence, arrays are an inductive type, and it's not possible for an array to contain itself, or contain an array that contains itself, and so on. However, it is possible for an array to contain a function or other operation that has access to the array through a variable, and in this sense an array can &quot;know about&quot; itself.</p>
<p>Different elements of an array should not influence each other. While some APLs force numbers placed in the same array to a common representation, which may have different precision properties, BQN values must not change behavior when placed in an array. However, this doesn't preclude changing the storage type of an array for better performance: for example, in a BQN implementation using 64-bit floats, an array whose elements are all integers that fit in 32-bit int range might be represented as an array of 32-bit ints.</p>
<h2 id="operation-types">Operation types</h2>