<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Thanks for the feedback, John,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">While I appreciate your arguments and code, I am reluctant to agree with any changes now. The LKB has been a pioneer in allowing docstrings, but I don't think we should revert the work other developers have put into their processors in the last month, not to mention the hard-earned consensus over the color of this bike shed. Here are my reasons:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">1. The agreed-upon syntax does not break backward compatibility (except regarding the number of quote characters), it only opens up new places where docstrings may occur (see (3))<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">2. The lack of support for docstrings outside of the LKB hindered their adoption, so backward compatibility isn't much of an issue given that grammar developers avoided using them (given this, maybe I should have pushed harder for docstrings immediately after := or :+... oh well).<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">3. The LKB's implementation that parses supertypes (or "parents" as used in the lisp code) before other terms is only half-baked. It first reads some type names, then looks for a docstring, then reads other terms, which may include more type names. I proposed making a change to the syntax so that type names must appear before other terms in a top-level conjunction, but the only replies I got addressing this point (from Stephan and Dan) opposed such a change. Thus, we agreed that type names have no special position in conjunctions. Because of this, saying that the docstring must occur before the AVM means little, because (a) the AVM may appear before a type name, and (b) there may be more than one AVM. For instance, the LKB (with the ERG's triple-quoted patch) currently accepts these:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> a := b & c """doc""".</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> a := b & """doc""" c.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> a := b & c & """doc""" [ Q r ].</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> a := b & """doc""" c & [ Q r ].</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> a := b & """doc""" [ Q r ] & c.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">but not these:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> a := """doc""" b & c.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> a := """doc""" b & c & [ Q r ].</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> a := b & c & [ Q r ] """doc""".<br></div><div><br></div><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">Furthermore, it accepts:</div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"> a := b & c & [ Q r ].</div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"> a := b & [ Q r ] & c.</div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">but not:</div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"> a := [ Q r ] & b & c.</div><br></div><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">I imagine a grammar developer (who doesn't browse the lisp code) would not find these facts consistent. It should either enforce that all supertypes appear before other terms, or allow them to mix freely.</div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">So, on the one hand, I think that the LKB is currently deficient WRT the above patterns (which are all allowed, according to current consensus). I may take a look at fixing the Lisp code, but it would take me a while. On the other hand, the LKB merely enforces the conventional layout of TDL definitions, so it is unlikely to cause problems for now.</div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">Finally, docstrings are desired for more than just the ERG, so the temporary solution in patches.lsp should eventually make it into the LKB proper. For instance, the read-tdl-avm-def and read-tdl-conjunction functions would need some changes and the read-tdl-type-parents function should probably just be removed.<br></div><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Fri, Sep 7, 2018 at 4:58 AM John Carroll <<a href="mailto:J.A.Carroll@sussex.ac.uk">J.A.Carroll@sussex.ac.uk</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> <div> <div style="word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space">Hi, <div><br> </div> <div>I've been looking at TDL reading in the LKB, and (partly for pragmatic reasons) I suggest restricting docstrings to occur only in the position immediately preceding the AVM - or just before the final . terminator if there is no AVM. Here are my reasons:</div> <div><br> </div> <div>1. The LKB currently only allows docstrings in that position, and changing this while retaining backward compatibility would require an unreasonable amount of patching in a grammar lkb/patches.lsp file</div> <div>2. This position is analogous to where docstrings are allowed in programming languages / docstring packages</div> <div><br> </div> <div>In the hope that this is acceptable, at least for the time being, I've sent Dan a new version of his patch to change docstrings from double-quoted to triple double-quoted in the LKB. The patch is attached in case other grammar developers want to pick it up.</div> <div><br> </div> <div>John</div> <div><br> <div> <blockquote type="cite"> <div>On 7 Sep 2018, at 00:29, <a href="mailto:goodman.m.w@gmail.com" target="_blank"> goodman.m.w@gmail.com</a> wrote:</div> <br class="m_333016454702567529x_Apple-interchange-newline"> <div> <div dir="ltr"> <div dir="ltr"> <div dir="ltr"> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Hi all,</div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">There are some remaining issues with TDL that I'd like to clean up. First I will summarize some decisions made (or at least not rejected) in previous email threads:<br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">1. Supertypes appear before other terms in a conjunction only by convention (not enforced in the syntax)<br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">2. Docstrings are triple-quoted and may appear before any top-level term or before the final . terminator</div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">3. Comments may appear in definitions anywhere that spaces can, except within strings/regexes/affixing-patterns</div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">The following changes are things I think people agree with, so I'd like to consider them as decided:<br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">4. Removal of the :< operator (if accepted as a variant of :=, throw a warning)</div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">5. Removal of 'single-quoted-symbols</div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">6. Removal of double-quoted "docstrings"<br> </div> <div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">7. Removal of non-regex uses of ^ (otherwise any BNF of TDL is necessarily incomplete because the "extended-syntax" use of ^ is open-ended)<br> </div> </div> <div><br> </div> <div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">And there's at least one point I don't think we reached a decision on:</div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">8. Instances must have exactly 1 "supertype" (which is really just a type and not a supertype, i.e., it doesn't change the type hierarchy)<br> </div> </div> <div><br> </div> <div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Also:</div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">9. Does anyone know how wild-cards differ from letter-sets? I see HaG has a wild-card and suffix pattern like these:</div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> %(wild-card (?g ui))</div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> ...<br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> %suffix (!c!v !c!vn) (!v?g !vn)<br> </div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">My guess is that wild-cards match but are not used in the replacement, which I can imagine is useful if you want the replacement to use the second of two matches but not the first. It makes me wonder why we don't just use regex substitutions for these things.<br> </div> </div> <div><br> </div> <div> <div class="m_333016454702567529x_" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">If nobody responds about (1)--(7), I'll make sure the syntax description on the TdlRfc wiki reflects those decisions.</div> <br> </div> -- <br> <div dir="ltr" class="m_333016454702567529x_gmail_signature">-Michael Wayne Goodman</div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </blockquote> </div> <br> </div> <div></div> </div> <div style="word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space"> <div></div> <div><br> </div> </div> </div> </blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">-Michael Wayne Goodman</div></div>