Re: Format of tokens

From: Rob Seaman <seaman-at-noao.edu>
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 21:45:30 -0700


On Nov 1, 2007, at 8:58 PM, Brian Thomas wrote:

> you really can't go part way, either something is human-
> recognizable, or it isn't.

By this standard, the underscores are unnecessary for it to be human- recognizable.

> If con_science is not to be confused with conscience then I suppose
> the author of the node can invent some convention to suit their
> needs, but
> its likely to take up more characters (like 'conunderscorescience').

Unless we're worried about penology, do any significant astronomical examples spring to mind? Do the few examples requiring disambiguation justify adding underscores to virtually all tokens?

> Is there really a parser out there which can't handle an
> underscore? Or is
> it that people are worried that if we allow this one non-alphanumeric
> character more will follow?

How about dots and semicolons? With #con;science we can have our UCDs and parse them, too.

> So...unless I hear dire predictions of "slippery slope, slippery
> slope" or
> how any RDF parser can't handle underscores in names I'm mildly in
> favor of the underscore.

"Better is the enemy of good enough" describes the slipperiest of slopes.

Received on 2007-11-02Z05:45:52