On Jan 14, 2006, at 10:29 AM, Bhaskar, KS wrote:
SSVNs are an attempt to provide a "standard" way to provide access to
some features that were previously provided in a non-standard way on
different MUMPSen.
That sounds right.
Unfortunately, M standardizes the names of SSVNs but
not their behavior,
Yes.
so they are effectively useless as standards - it's
much easier to accommodate differences in syntax than it is
differences
in semantics.
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. In fact, one of my major
complaints about the M standard is that it doesn't really touch on
semantic issues at all, except in a very informal way. I'm not saying
we need complete mathematical rigor, but a reasonably formal
operational semantics would be nice. But be that as it may, I don't
think I agree: syntactic forms without a semantic interpretation
(whether we make it explicit or not) are pointless. The question is
not whether or not you define new semantics but whether or not the
semantics is formally specified.
GT.M does not support SSVNs, in part for this reason. There were/are
also some security concerns with some SSVNs.
Maybe it doesn't need to be said, but I wasn't criticizing GT.M, just
point out that you won't find these SSVNs on a GT.M system.
-- Bhaskar
===
Gregory Woodhouse
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Einstein was a giant. He had his head in the clouds and his feet on
the ground."
--Richard P. Feynman
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