Subject: Re: [xsl] things about grouping From: Ihe Onwuka <ihe.onwuka@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:47:37 +0000 |
On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Michael Kay <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>Why do I have to write for $i in (1 to n) return "$1" instead of (1 to >> n)/"$1! > > Because there were people on the working group who could not stomach the > idea of having the expression 10/2 return 2. > One could have distinguished the sequence consisting solely of the number 10 from the number 10 which with the existing syntax would have gotten you the slightly less objectionable (10)/2. One could have followed the lead of set theory, {10} is a set, 10 is an integer, or the convention of functional programming languages of using square brackets for lists/sequences. The other aspect of this is the semantics of the symbol / which is pregnant with meaning from the mathematical domain - a situation exacerbated by the fact that the other operands in the expression happen to be numbers. I have no idea how much mileage one gets from interpreting 10 as a singleton sequence but it would seem that the tradeoff for doing so was compositionality and I would have needed to see alot of miles to have made that bargain.
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