[REBOL] Re: Best Language
From: joel:neely:fedex at: 11-Dec-2002 13:54
Hi, Reichart,
Interesting questions!
Reichart wrote:
> What representational system, besides English, is good at expressing
> the following three (characteristic) statements, and how would these
> statements be represented in that system?
>
> 1) L is a list of Foobles.
>
One of the following
L :: [Fooble]
or
L = {f | f (- Foobles}
(where the "(-" is really a lowercase epsilon!)
> 2) L is a list of Glorps of Foobles.
> (Assume G(f) maps Foobles to Glorps)
>
This one is a little harder, because there are two different issues,
in my mental model:
L :: [Glorp]
or
L = {g | g (- Glorps}
express the idea that L is a list of Glorps (without worrying about
where they came from). If I *need* to worry about the Foobles used
to "manufacture" the specific Glorps in question, I'd probably write
L = {G(f) | f (- Foobles}
> 3) L is a list of Foobles such that each Fooble is H() of
> the one before it. (Where H(f) is a function mapping
> Foobles to Foobles.)
>
As the construction becomes more complex, I tend to fall back on more
and more formal notation. If I want to focus on the pairwise element
relationships, I might write
(A i,j : 0 < i < N : L.i = H.L.(i-1))
or, if I think for a few seconds about the implications of the above,
L.i = H^i.f0 | f0 (- Foobles
or, if I just want a high-level description,
L contains the iterates of H over f0
depending on the need of the moment.
-jn-
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel Neely joelDOTneelyATfedexDOTcom 901-263-4446
