Subject: Re: [lojban] More on lojban programatic semantics: Strong typing and inferencing of types

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 13:45:58 -0400

At 12:58 PM 05/22/2000 -0400, Brook Conner wrote:
> > Why not use the mekso variable declaration constructs?
>
>Because not all variables are mekso. A file isn't a mekso. Neither is a 
>string.
>
>Or are you suggesting that we use "operator overloading" kinds of things
>for variables that aren't numbers or numerical expressions?

The mekso grammar was specifically designed to allow such 
overloading. Almost any grammatical construct can be converted into a 
mekso component of some (probably appropriate) type. I specifically had in 
mind the possible use of Lojban as a program specification language as were 
appearing in the 80s as automated design tools. For a while I was 
tangentially involved in program proving for security purposes, and 
considered the requirements for mekso and Lojban to support such efforts as 
well.

In particular, there is no requirement that mekso operate on 
numbers. String operations like concatenation certainly can be expressed 
using mathematical language.

lojbab
----
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org