From matt.mattarn@gmail.com Thu Oct 23 08:04:48 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-board); Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:04:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from wf-out-1314.google.com ([209.85.200.172]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Kt1jo-0000Oa-S0 for llg-board@lojban.org; Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:04:47 -0700 Received: by wf-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id 28so378864wfa.25 for ; Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:04:35 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; bh=cNKlZFqmXNWwL7JbXc4jQcji+FmBrptV6EQwg4G4csE=; b=rQeIfhACCH0h7kOcBAzzP/YLbGM9oLLLJtHW8emx7q70H2wOQQjP/HN7uWhFlSoT7p c+G9GMt0LVid9srHVOGYwfa2Egm2GWCwlPzk+mZ2gJtamJkr8muKCs+2BC65AbQU0oKz w7F3+wXNk90RdCtCAqVN2w001G9CmIi90xDvE= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition :references; b=Rf+ChtTP9P69ukcDo8QsJFKWgnJLUEvlmZHRXM4iyFLALzcXfCB7WGxVluyd4Erxbh iArkJr4dHCYKPJnffxHHLN6HmpBVnTbGdGBdE7HmbsV+eC7ejYbEAul4g4N6PfYJ+ZR5 VJY5v+ZMzTmiYUDxTaHjnQf6co11TAKKZV59s= Received: by 10.140.188.10 with SMTP id l10mr450205rvf.6.1224774275396; Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:04:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.140.141.20 with HTTP; Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:04:35 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:04:35 -0400 From: "Matt Arnold" To: llg-board@lojban.org Subject: [llg-board] Re: A request to spend money. In-Reply-To: <20081023035133.GE4608@mercury.ccil.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20081022214253.GD23512@digitalkingdom.org> <20081022223521.GB31254@mercury.ccil.org> <20081022225329.GG23512@digitalkingdom.org> <20081022232701.GH23512@digitalkingdom.org> <20081023011215.GI23512@digitalkingdom.org> <20081023035133.GE4608@mercury.ccil.org> X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 432 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: matt.mattarn@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-board@lojban.org X-list: llg-board Robin, John, thank you. From what you've said, I can work out a hypothesis about who benefits and how they benefit. If it is proven that a formal grammar that can encode elidable terminators is impossible, the benefit is the satisfaction of curiosity of many in the Lojban community. But if such a grammar is created, the benefit is that we can more easily write a more complete Lojban parser in any computer language. -Matt On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 11:51 PM, John Cowan wrote: > Matt Arnold scripsit: > >> I don't understand that either. I thought code, by virtue of being >> code, has to be rigorously formalized in order for a computer to be >> able to understand the instructions. That can't be what you mean, so >> I'm confused. > > That's true in one sense. But there are two kinds of formal description: > a program is a formal description of what the computer is to do, blow by > blow, like a recipe or knitting instructions. A formal grammar, on the > other hand, is a formal description of what the input to a program > looks like, without any specification of how the program is to verify > its input against that grammar. Given a grammar, it's possible to construct > a program that detects that grammar and complains when the input violates it. > However, not every formal grammar is usable in constructing such a program; > it may need help from auxiliary programs. > > A PEG grammar is something in between: it specifies the valid inputs, but also > an order in which its rules are to be tried. The YACC and BNF grammars have > no such notion. > > I hope that helps. > > -- > John Cowan http://ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org > Arise, you prisoners of Windows / Arise, you slaves of Redmond, Wash, > The day and hour soon are coming / When all the IT folks say "Gosh!" > It isn't from a clever lawsuit / That Windowsland will finally fall, > But thousands writing open source code / Like mice who nibble through a wall. > --The Linux-nationale by Greg Baker > > >