At 11:29 PM 6/17/96, Ka-Ping Yee wrote: >> Renderings in speech need to convey more than a "2D picture" of the >> expression. > >I definitely agree with what Raman says here. > >That document at [GENERAL] makes many references to a "2-D >presentational structure" and a "2-dimensional form of an expression". >I believe this is *not* what a mathematical or structured-expression >notation should be based upon, and i disagree with this statement as >as a design goal [DESIGN]. > >A two-dimensional model is too limiting and presentation-specific. >The goal should be a language that conveys the semantics and structure >of an expression. Welcome to the group! Some of the documents you refer to are obsolete. For the current state of the proposal from Wolfram, see my letter to the list from 31 May 96, which supersedes everything before it. As for the issue mentioned above, I also agree with Raman's later comments (on a conference call). I think this was mainly a misunderstanding. I meant to refer not to 2-dimensionality itself, but to the abstract structure of the notation, as opposed on the one hand to the precise but low-level 2-dimensional layout (nothing except absolute sizes and positions of symbols), and on the other hand to the purely semantic structure of what some notation is conventionally understood to mean (but by a complex and incomplete and not-standardized correspondence of structure to meaning). The reason I nonetheless used the terminology "2-dimensional" is because an essential part of this abstract structure is that there are several choices of "relative size and position" for the subexpressions of an expression, which often convey different meanings (e.g. the subscript and superscript positions). Though these are (in principle) abstract logical relationships independent of the 2-dimensional form, there is no standard terminology for them (in general) except that which refers to the 2-dimensional form. I agree that the language I chose led to confusion about this, and should be improved. Raman was going to suggest a rewording of that paragraph, but I don't think he ever did so. When writing it I found it pretty hard to come up with a short phrase that expressed what I meant. Perhaps "abstract notational structure" is best?Received on Monday, 17 June 1996 15:59:41 UTC
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