[Om3] Symbol Definitions in the Description elements

[Chris Rowley]

Professor James Davenport wrote --

> > Thus I would allow multiple definitions but insist that they are
> > compatible.
> A plausible point of view. It makes the concept of non-cyclicity 
> non-deterministic, since it might depend which definitions one used: I 
> would wish to insist on NEVER CYCLIC. 

Agreed.  With 'proof'?

> > Moving on, one could usefully insist on a _mathematical_ proof of all
> > of such things: compatibility, non-cyclicity, finiteness etc.  Or not!
> Non-cyclicity is a feature of the entire graph of CDs, and therefore 
> subject to change, whereas consistency of definitions in a CD is a fact of 
> that CD (assuming that the SEMANTICS, as opposed to the way they are 
> expressed, of objects depended on does not change, and this is illegal).

Not sure that I agree here.  Non-cyclicity for one CD is surely only a
property of the 'dependency subgraph generated by the contents of that
CD', not the entire dependency graph of CDs.  And the former is
exactly the subgraph whose nodes need to be studied (in greater
detail) when checking consistency.


chris