Subject: A thought on dates: big-endian mekso and little-endian bridi

From: Brook Conner <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 16:06:04 -0400

So there's been all this argument about big-endian vs. little-endian,
and I can't help but put myself at risk of flames by being baffled about
the argument, at least in respect to dates.

mekso are big-endian and bridi are little-endian. 

With mekso, of course, you need to specify a different base, but the
language allows for that. And it allows for more than one "decimal
point" - I recall that time is a specific example. lojban numbers (and
numbers in most human languages) are big-endian - the largest unit comes
first. Whether that is thousands vs hundreds, pounds vs ounces, francs
vs centimes, or hours vs minutes.

Now, if there were a gismu that was an assertion of a particular point
in time as existing ("date" roughly, but not quite), then (let's pretend
it's "datci" - which, despite sounding like a gismu, doesn't appear to
be) let's suppose that the various places mark the time steps:

* datci - /x1/ seconds, /x2/ minutes, /x3/ hours, /x4/ days, /x5/ years

or alternatively:

* datci - /x1/ seconds, /x2/ minutes, /x3/ hours, /x4/ days, /x5/
months, /x6/ years

This is of course somewhat un-lojban-like, as it doesn't have the more
usual pattern of "thing,aspect,frame of reference" kind of stuff going on.

However, "The time is 5:15pm":

la cabna cu datci la pamu la paze

Literally, "The second called now exists at minute named fifteen at hour
named 17"

Prefer hours then minutes? Several ways to say it:

la cabna cu datci fi la paze fe la pamu marking places explicitly
la cabna cu tesete datci la paze la pamu using the little-used
compound conversions
la cabna fi la paze fe la pamu cu datci "The time, 17:15 it is" -
Yoda :-)

la fi revo datci - 24:00, i.e., "midnight"
la fi no datci - 00:00, also midnight
la fi pare datci - 12:00, noon
la midju datci - "The middle moment", could be noon, midnight,
midweek, midmonth, midyear, depending on context.

So how is this different from the *actual* lojban gismu mokca?

mokca - x1 is point/moment/instant (dimensionless) in/on/at time/place x2

mokca, first of all, requires a more complex mekso than a simple number.

Secondly, and more epistemologically, mokca requires identification of
the space-time instant. x1 is that space time instant. datci does not so
require an identification. In effect, the whole bridi is that
identification. On the other hand, mokca covers both space time and is
unit-neutral - you can use Martian hours and kilometers to specify the
space-time moment. Of course, our hypothetical datci could be modified,
or the units could be specified explicitly as part of x1-n (with the
time ones only being the default).

Some thoughts..... not meant to be a criticism of lojban, if anything, a
statement of how well things fit in....

Brook