Re: read BLD draft for f2f

Michael Kifer wrote:
>>>> 8. In section 4.2.1 the mapping of plain literals with a language tag 
>>>> talks about replacing occurrences of "@" with "@@". I would prefer that 
>>>> we have a separate representation of text in the concrete syntax and 
>>>> avoid such mangling or simply avoid the concrete syntax altogether. If 
>>>> we stick to the current concrete syntax then (editorial) it should be 
>>>> made clearer that that transformation is an artifact of the concrete 
>>>> syntax and not relevant to the XML encoding or to any actual RIF processor.
>>> I do not see how we can get rid of the presentation syntax. This means that
>>> we either give no examples or we use abstract or XML syntax. The latter two
>>> options mean that mere mortals, like me, will not be able to write it our
>>> understand it without undue effort.
>> I was actually referring to the details of the current presentation 
>> syntax rather than its existence.
>>
>> We already have short form presentation syntaxes for several primitive 
>> literal types so having a custom presentation for text, e.g. 
>> 'lexical'@lang, seems reasonable to me and avoids encoding the lang as 
>> part of the lexical form.
> 
> This has two problems. First, we have a uniform syntax for all data types,
> which is "..."^^type, and I see no reason to break this. This ('lexical'@lang)
> *could* be considered a shorthand for "lexical@lang"^^text, but then it
> does not avoid the encoding problem.

The real issue is that the lexical space of a datatype is a set of
character sequences, so we indeed cannot avoid the encoding problem.

Best, Jos

> 
> The second problem is that the @ idiom is better reserved for references to
> knowledge defined in other modules, e.g., p(?X)@mofulefoo.
> 
> If encoding is a problem (I do not see why it is. After all, we still need
> to encode the " and the \) then we could use this syntax:
> "literal"^^string(lang) (or text(lang)).
> 
> 
> 	--michael  
> 
>> Dave
>> -- 
>> Hewlett-Packard Limited
>> Registered Office: Cain Road, Bracknell, Berks RG12 1HN
>> Registered No: 690597 England
>>
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Jos de Bruijn            debruijn@inf.unibz.it
+390471016224         http://www.debruijn.net/
----------------------------------------------
The third-rate mind is only happy when it is
thinking with the majority. The second-rate
mind is only happy when it is thinking with
the minority. The first-rate mind is only
happy when it is thinking.
  - AA Milne