Principle of Least Power (was Re: Agenda of 7 February 2006 TAG teleconference)

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I realise I'm not altogether happy about the degree of vagueness of
the appeal to 'power' in the current draft.

In particular, I think we need to distinguish between expressiveness
on the one hand and formal complexity on the other, whether worst-case
time/space complexity or formal-language-theory complexity.

Expressive richness is not necessarily 'bad' complexity -- consider
boolean logic expressed with 0, 1 and Shaeffer stroke (== exclusive
or) versus boolean logic expressed with and, or, implication and
negation -- the latter is both more complex and _much_ easier to work
with, but at _no_ additional cost.

I think I'd be much happier if this were made clearer.

ht
- -- 
 Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh
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Received on Tuesday, 7 February 2006 19:32:25 UTC