[Bug 17181] [XPath 3.0] Terminology: "Restricted Union Type"

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=17181

--- Comment #3 from Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> 2012-06-11 15:22:21 UTC ---
It depends what you mean by "editorial". If you mean, we can change this
without affecting the syntax or semantics of the language, then yes it is
editorial. If you mean, we can change this without involving the WG in the
discussion, then no, I think the choice of formal terminology is more important
than that. For example, the terms we use in the spec are likely to be reflected
in text books and in error messages issued by products, and as such have a
direct bearing on the usability of the language. 

Your proposed term feels unwieldy, and feels like an attempt to make the term
self-explanatory, which seems doomed to failure (for example, it doesn't
capture the fact that you can't have lists anywhere, but you can have facets at
the level of an atomic type). It's also negative: it says what is outside the
class rather than what is inside it.

The essence of this kind of union type is that its value space is the
mathematical union of the value spaces of one or more atomic types. I'm
inclined to go for simple adjective that has no intrinsic meaning but that
isn't already in use, and that reflects the fact that we're dealing with a
subset of all union types that has very simple properties: perhaps a "pure
union". I'd stlll like to leave "constructed union" on the table, however.

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Received on Monday, 11 June 2012 15:22:24 UTC