Re: terminology for purple numbers

[Eugene Eric Kim <eekim@eekim.com>]

On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Eric Armstrong wrote:    (01)

> 1. Can you give me a little more background on the change in meaning
>    you refer to?    (02)

In Augment, "sid" refers to "statement IDs".  "statements" are nodes in
Augment files, generally consisting of a single paragraph or header.
Augment SIDs are unique, immutable, numerical addresses, and are preceded
by a zero.  An example of an Augment SID is 045.    (03)

Murray is proposing that sid refer to "structural IDs", or the Augment
structural location numbers.  An example is 2C3, which refers to the third
subparagraph of the third subparagraph of the second paragraph.    (04)

So we would essentially have the following mapping:    (05)

    Augment                        Purple/plink    Example
    statement IDs (sid)         => nid             045
    structural location numbers => sid             2C3    (06)

> 3. In general, I'm in favor of NOT using "ID" for anything but
>    the ID, where ID will eventually be a globally unique
>    node identifier (nid). (gun?)    (07)

Good point.    (08)

>    So, for a structure identifier, I'd be inclined to use
>    "path" or "relpath" in the name.    (09)

"path" is okay, but to many people will imply XPath.    (010)

>   * Table of Contents path: TOC
>     +-I kind of like this, because the notion of a TOC
>       represents hierarchical structure. It assumes the
>       the kind of hierarchical path identification we are
>       trying to capture. So "toc:1A3B" pretty much tells
>       me at glance how to interpret "1A3B".
>     +-Having the name be radically different from NID
>       also helps to identify the thing at a glance,
>       and prevents confusions, typographic errors, and the
>       like.    (011)

Not bad.  Another alternative would be to just use "aloc" or "aln" for
"Augment location number."  In fact, this is growing on me, because it
identifies it as an Augment-style addressing scheme, thus retaining its
heritage while not confusing it with modern addressing schemes.    (012)

-Eugene    (013)

-- 
+=== Eugene Eric Kim ===== eekim@eekim.com ===== http://www.eekim.com/ ===+
|       "Writer's block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they        |
+=====  can have an excuse to drink alcohol."  --Steve Martin  ===========+    (014)