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David Lyon wrote:
>On Friday 04 March 2005 06:19 am, David Carlisle wrote:
>
>
>>>imo that's an ugly character, the "¬" symbol.
>>>
>>>
>>That symbol would be immediately understoood by countless mathematicians
>>all over the world whereas unexpected english words in the middle of an
>>expression would make formulae harder to understand even if English is
>>your spoken language, and perhaps unintelligible if it is not.
>>I suppose you don't like an upside down A for "for all" or a backwards E
>>for "there exists" either?
>>
>>
>
>David,
>
>I've never heard of those...
>
>it's not so much about like or dislike... but rather doing markup in such
>a way that the xml can easily handle what we do most... and for many
>that is transporting business data around the place.
>
>The key types of business data are:
>
> - String values
> - numeric values (ie integers, numbers)
> - currency values
> - boolean values
> - date/time values
>
>
actually, this is just an imposition of an increasingly machine focused
culture. before computing became endemic businesses stored pieces of
paper covered in symbols and occassionally someone would interpret those
symbols. not always as you would expect.
computer hardware designers decided on a basic set of entities that
arithmetic and logic units could handle using functionality largely
designed by turing.
we try to cope with that legacy.
here ends the history lesson.
xml pleasantly takes us back to the days of symbols on paper (er symbols
stored electronically) and once again it is up to the user of the
information to decide how to interpret it. you chose to imply an
interpretation, i don't. there are no strings, number, or other things.
there's interpretation of symbols as strings, numbers, and other things.
it's a shame you chose to skip so much maths. if you had persisted
longer you would have found out that it's not really about numbers and
it is very much about many of the things we discuss in xml-dev.
rick
>They're present in field types in all the databases that we use.
>
>So I've been using the following representation to denote field types:
>
> & = String values
> # = numeric values (ie integers, numbers)
> $/£/¥/€ = currency values
> ? = boolean values
> @ = date values
>
>The markup roughly becomes:
>
> <tag>
> element[field_type]=[data_value]
></tag>
>
>This is probably not perfectly adapted for use in mathematics. But it is
>fairly good for transmitting business data, which is usually built up from
>data of the above types.
>
>The other important question or point you mention is readability. In my
>world, the people reading the markup are the business analysts, IT support
>staff or the business owners. They aren't highly trained and need something
>very simple.
>
>So these are the particular adaptations/improvements that I have made
>to suit the particular requirements as I see. But the purpose is firmly for
>business use... so forgive me if I'm somewhat blind to other uses...
>
>Best Regards
>
>David
>
>
>
>
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