Re: [xdi] Fwd: Attribute and singleton are properties of a node, not of an arc

[Markus Sabadello <markus.sabadello@xdi.org>]

I really like this analysis..

- The context symbols are really part of the arc's identifier, not of any of the involved nodes.

- & and ^ are constraints on the node that follows the arc, therefore these characters should be at the end of the arc's identifier.

I have to admit I have gotten used to having all the symbols in front of the arc's identifier, so at first glance =markus+email&^ looks a bit alien to me, but the logic behind it seems very clean. What do others think?

Markus

On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 4:35 PM, Joseph Boyle <planetwork@josephboyle.net> wrote:

I've had all along a strong intuition that the attribute symbol & and singleton symbol ^ should go after the name they have been preceding.

After examining the graph for this segment, I'm now clear that +markus+&^email needs to be +markus+email&^.

Let's graph +markus+&^email keeping mind that subsegments label arcs, and implicitly there is a node between each arc in the path.

           arc                  arc
node --------------> node ---------------> node
         +markus         &^    +email

The attribute symbol & signifies that the LAST node is capable of originating a value arc.
The singleton symbol ^ signifies that the LAST node can originate a value arc to "the" email for Markus.

& and ^ are constraints on a NODE, not on a particular arc.

+markus+&^email puts &^ in the position of the middle node, which they don't apply to.
+markus+email&^ puts &^ in the position of the last node, which they do apply to:

          arc                  arc
node --------------> node ---------------> node
        +markus               +email     &^


So does &^ "really" belong with the preceding subsegment (as a suffix), or with the following subsegment (as a prefix), or neither (just a property of the node)?
Each of those three choices is an arbitrary convention equally compatible with &^ located between the arc in and the arc out of the node it applies to.

How about the six context symbols? They are really part of the arc's identifier, not the arc's source node or target node, so whether they precede or follow the name is arbitrary.  Preceding the name is what we are used to; following the name would be consistent with considering the attribute and singleton symbols to be suffixes.