Re: literal value terminology (was: Re: Review of MT)

Pat Hayes wrote:
> 
> >
> >>>    Or by "literal value" do you mean the member of the value space
> >>>    of some datatype?
> >>
> >>  Yes, that is what I meant.
> >
> >Good. I had hoped that was the case. What threw me
> >was the adjective 'literal' in front of value. It
> >seems to suggest that the values are the strings
> >(literals) rather than the members of the value
> >space of the datatype.
> >
> >Perhaps you could just say 'value'? and leave the
> >'literal' off?
> >
> >>>    If the latter, then don't we need some treatment of lexical datatypes,
> >>>    value spaces, lexical spaces, and (presumably also) canonically
> >>>    lexical spaces in the core MT?
> >>
> >>  Well, we need it eventually.  But in the meantime, the MT can just
> >>  say that literals denote literal values (whatever those turn out to
> >>  be).
> >
> >Fair enough. Though I think it would be clearer, in
> >light of the vocabulary of the "foundation" datatyping
> >document (sections 1-3 of Sergey's document) to just
> >say 'value' rather than 'literal value'.
> 
> Hmm. The trouble is that plain "value" could mean anything at all.  I
> want to allow the MT to conceptually distinguish values of literals
> from semantic values in general, ie resources. (They might turn out
> to be the same; but they might not also and I'd like to stay
> agnostic.)
> 
> How about calling them "datatype values" ? That avoids the use of
> "literal" as an adjective and also makes an obvious connection with
> datatyping. It also follows the DAML usage, which distinguishes
> 'object' classes from 'datatype' classes, which are classes of
> datatype values.
> 
> Anyone got strong views on this? Speak now! Unless there are strong
> objections I will make this change.
> 
> Pat

Speaking now :)

I don't like the name "datatype values" particularly... I already made a
suggestion long ago, but let me repeat it here again anyway. For
orthogonality, I'd rename "literals" to "literal tokens/symbols/etc.",
and make "literal values" just "literals". So you get

I(resource URI) = resource
I(literal token) = literal

It just looks more consistent than

I(resource URI) = resource
I(literal) = literal value

Of course, such change would involve a lot of find-&-replacing both in
the draft and in our minds, but it does help to avoid confusions
(Patrick's email is another example). If we leave it like it is now, I'm
afraid we (well, you Pat) would have to clarify it over and over
again...

Sergey

Received on Friday, 18 January 2002 19:34:21 UTC