[Om] Question concerning OpenMath encoding

[Professor James Davenport]

On Thu, March 25, 2010 7:51 am, Heeren, Bastiaan wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a silly question about the OpenMath encoding, and the symbols
> defined in the list1 dictionary in particular. Suppose I want to represent
> the empty list with the n-ary symbol list1.list. Should that be:
>
>    <OMA><OMS cd='list1' name='list' /></OMA>
>
> or just:
>
>    <OMS cd='list1' name='list' />
>
> In case both are correct, would you consider one to be better than the
> other one?
Very defiitely the first. The second is the operator itself, not the
result (thinking in an operational way, which of course if not the only
way to view OpenMath). Oddly enough, I was lecturing on a very similar
point (in the context of MatLab) a few weeks ago: relevant slide attached.
> I could not figure out the correct encoding from the online documentation.
> To me, it seems strange to have an application without arguments to the
> function. On the other hand, if you are expecting a list, it is more
> regular to have the <OMA> surrounding the list symbol.
This obviously depends on one's point of view, but the OpenMath
documentation is probably not as clear as it should be here. I'll think
about this.

James Davenport
Recently: Visiting Full Professor, University of Waterloo
Now back as:
Lecturer on XX10190, CM30070, CM30078/50123, CM50209
Hebron & Medlock Professor of Information Technology, University of Bath
OpenMath Content Dictionary Editor and Programme Chair, OpenMath 2009
IMU Committee on Electronic Information and Communication
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