Re: how to write good CS paper

In article <Pine.SOL.4.05.10105241539290.26490-100000_at_bacon.math.uwaterloo.ca> Jim Nastos <jnastos_at_bacon.math.uwaterloo.ca> writes:
>On Thu, 24 May 2001, mikito Harakiri wrote:
>
>> > 2. NOTATIONS
>> > Finite Structures and Logics. All structures are assumed to be finite.
>> > A relational signature 'sigma' is a set of relation symbols
>> > {R_1 , ..., R_l}, with associated arities p_i > 0.
>
> This is a very standard notation, if one wants to talk about a bunch of
>relations.

The propensity toward superfluous indexing reflects inefficient thinking and thinking at the wrong level of abstraction.

You could just as well say:

A relational signature is a set, R, of relations with a map arity: R -> N such that arity(r), for r in R, is a number >= 0 representing the number of arguments that r takes.

> They would index them probably so that they can make the statements they
>want to make in as much generality as possible. This is often very
>desirable.

... and quite ironic.

Case in point:

> Advantages are plentiful. For example, if I want to make a statement
>that says for these variables a,b,c or whatever, there is *some* relation
>such that... I could say "There exists a 'j' such that a_j on the
>variables a,b,c.. whatever... has this certain property." THe indices
>allow us to pick out a relation if we choose.

You could just as well say:

   there exists a r in R such that ...r...

as opposed to:

   there exists a j >= 0 such that ...r_j...

which is strictly LESS general. Received on Sun Jul 22 2001 - 01:26:13 CEST