Re: Terminology proposals

Dave Pawson writes:

> On Thu, 27 Jan 2022 at 09:27, Norm Tovey-Walsh <norm@saxonica.com> wrote:
>>
>> > After the pragma discussions:
>> > Proposal
>> > *pragma amended ixml input grammar*
>> > I.e. the ixml input grammar as amended by the application of one or
>> > more pragmas within that grammar.
>>
>> That doesn’t seem obviously useful to me at the moment.
>
> Perhaps not, but it is another ... (I won't say file) text stream which we may
> wish to discuss?

Like Norm, I've been wrong before.  But the idea of a 'pragma-amended
ixml input grammar' seems to assume that all pragmas will work the way
one or two imaginary examples in the discussion document of pragmas one
might imagine someone specifying, so that 'the ixml grammar after
modification' is a thing, and moreover a thing that we might want to
discuss.

I don't expect that all pragmas will work that way, and unless we do, as
a group, specify one or more pragmas that do work that way, I don't see
the circumstances in which we would need to discuss the result of
applying such a pragma.

Even the phrase "applying such a pragma" feels odd -- pragmas serve to
provide a channel for communication with a processor in a vocabulary and
with semantics that are not specified by this group.  We do not know and
should not assume that the meaning of every pragma can be usefully
described as the application of some operation to the grammar or to the
input.  Some can.  Some other examples in the discussion document can't.

Michael

-- 
C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
Black Mesa Technologies LLC
http://blackmesatech.com

Received on Thursday, 27 January 2022 15:34:33 UTC