Re: A Logical Model for Lists as Relations

Bob Badour wrote:
> Jay Dee wrote:
>

>> vc wrote:
>>
>>> Jay Dee wrote:
>>>

>>  >> What's 'bunch theory' ?
>>
>> As for my own: scalars are boolean, numbers, and characters.  Data
>> may be structured (Here we go down the rabbit hole!) as:
>>  a bunch (unpackaged and unindexed),
>>  a set (packaged and unindexed),
>>  a string (unpackaged and indexed), and
>>  a list (packaged and indexed).
>>
>> More terminology?  Well, bunches and sets consist of elements, which
>> has the meaning we're familiar with from sets.  Sets are sets; they
>> are a package of elements constructed with {} operator.  , (comma)
>> is the set union operator.  Unpackaging a set - interpolating the
>> contents of a set - yields a bunch, which also has a comma union 
>> operator.  So
>>   a, b, c  is a bunch
>>  {a, b, c} is a set.
>>
>> The empty bunch is null and the empty set is {null}.

> Frankly, other than seemingly unimportant punctuation, I see no
> difference between your set and your bunch. Is there an operational
> difference?

The whole point is that {} and , aren't punctuation; they're operators.

> Perhaps if you stuck to the generally accepted language instead of
> inventing your own, you might have greater success at mutual comprehension.

Well, it's not my invention -- and I'm not arguing that this is a notation that everyone should embrace. Part of the point is that we're stumbling on each other's words. Received on Thu May 11 2006 - 21:09:20 CDT