[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]
Subject: Potential breakthrough
I have an internal maxim that I follow: if Steve tells me he’s
got a problem with something, and after three times trying to work it out with
him, he’s still got a problem with it, then I need to look at it very
closely and see if there’s a better solution. I’ve worked long enough with Marty now to realize the
same thing is true with him. So when both of them plus Wil are telling me something is
too complex, that’s one helluva strong signal. So after yesterday’s thread, I looked closely at the
requirements again and thought about the key issue Steve has raised about how “sticky
stars” makes for funky synonym rules. This jibes with what Marty keeps
saying about how the original “compact syntax” was much simpler
than “sticky stars”. I have always been the one saying that we needed sticky
stars. So I revisited that assumption…and realized that in that area I
too had been stuck with a “2.0” filter on. I had been assuming that
anything you could express as a parenthetical xref (which is “opaque”
to XRI resolution) had to be something that was also equally “opaque”
when expressed as a global-xref. But it’s that assumption that leads both to most of
the increased complexity and the funky synonym problem. So if you drop that
assumption and do as Marty has been suggesting all along and simply treat all
subsegments as subsegments… …everything works just fine. To illustrate, take Steve’s @ootao+west*steve and
@ootao*west*steve example. The current 2.1 syntax proposal requires these parse
into separate trees: @ ootao +west*steve @ ootao *west *steve But if you drop the requirement that global-xrefs need to be
syntactically opaque, they would both parse into the same trees, with the only
difference being the type of one subsegment: @ ootao +west *steve @ ootao *west *steve The funky synonym problem goes away because all subsegments
are subsegments, and if @ootao wants to declare +west and *west as synonyms, it
doesn’t affect any other synonyms lower in the tree. But you still get
the semantic precision of @ootao being able to express that +west is intended
to be a generic dictionary identifier vs. *west a local name without any
expectation of cross-referencability. So I tried to figure out if there was any other requirement –
in XDI RDF or anywhere else global-xrefs would be used – that would not
be met if global-xrefs were not opaque. I couldn’t come up with any. If so, we could essentially have our cake and eat it too. The
ABNF would get significantly simpler, and we’d get all the semantic simplicity/richness
of direct concatenation, but without any of the pain of funky synonyms or
increase resolution complexity. Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out why I was so
stuck on “sticky stars” (so to speak ;-). After all, Marty has
repeatedly said things would be much simpler without them. But then, sometimes
when something’s stuck in your head, it takes a real jolt to knock it
out. I’ll take a pass on the simpler ABNF that reflects all
this as soon as I get a break today – worst case I’ll try to have
something published by tonight. =Drummond |
[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]