WikiDiscuss

On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 04:02:07PM -0400, Rob Speer wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 09:17:54AM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> > > Hmmm...
> > >
> > > The problem is that Rob and I are defining pi'e more broadly than
> > > as a high base digit separator. We allow pi'e for any tuple, where
> > > the components can be signed numbers, I even allow fractions and
> > > complex numbers as tuple components.
> >
> > OK. John has made it very clear that this is *not* the purpose of
> > pi'e, that jo'i is the general tuple creator.
>
> Okay. So should we learn to say times like:
>
> lijo'i pamu boi cize cu ca tcika
>
> instead of:
>
> li pamu pi'e cize ca tcika
>
> ?

Only if you're using "pi" with your times, I would say.

> (And why in the world does jbofi'e require {cu} there?)

I have no idea. Mine doesn't, of course.

> Dates and times really are tuples, not weird bases.

I agree.

> We don't think of the components of a time as being digits. Dates
> aren't even in a consistent base.

Yep.

> And even outside of Lojban, you can express a very precise time with a
> decimal point after the seconds, and people understand exactly what
> you mean.

Yep.

> When expressing times and dates, we sometimes elide numbers in a
> different way than you would expect based on where the mixed-base
> decimal point is. For dates, the numbers even go in the wrong
> direction half the time.

Yep.

> If pi'e cannot be a tuple, then times and dates would need to use jo'i.

Yep.

> I think that using jo'i here is too wordy.

Because of the need for boi? That's the only change, in terms of
wordiness.

> I would prefer an alternate convention: {pi} is allowed inside a
> {pi'e} part, except that {pipi'e} is a mixed-base decimal point.
> (Incidentally, few people realize you can have a decimal point er,
> radix point in any base other than 10, let alone would want to use
> one for base 17 or above, so I think the extra syllable is justified.)

That seems very reasonable to me, but it is unquestionably a change to
what's described in the CLL.

> So my interpretation is that {pi'e} has been taken over to make a
> tuple, and that the way we can express numbers in large bases is with
> a pi'e-tuple.

That means we have two ways to do the same thing, which isn't
necessarily a problem.

> The alternative is to keep the shorter form reserved only for speaking
> in actual bases above 16, which nobody uses.

Yep.

-Robin