Yes, rank. Come to think of it, though, I was thinking "rank" would be a good word in place of "number of dimensions," as in a rank-two piddle, rather than a two-dimensional piddle.
The issue arises with describing data. For example, a point in three dimensional space is described by a one dimensional piddle with three elements. As you can see, the word "dimension" is used in two ways, one to describe the extent of space, the other to describe the shape of the piddle. Using the word "rank," we would say that a point in three dimensional space is described by a rank-one piddle with three elements. A potential revised lexicon, then, would be this: dims -> shape ndims -> rank In order of specificity, we would talk about a... 3x5 piddle, rank-two piddle piddle One final, very deep annoyance that I have is with the term "thread." It should be "autoloop." But that should wait until after 2.4.10 at the very least. David On Jan 5, 2012 4:48 AM, "Matthew Kenworthy" <[email protected]> wrote: > The "shape" proposal is an *excellent* idea - it gets my vote! > > On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 5:17 AM, Craig DeForest > <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Hrm. As long as we're on terminology, how do you describe a PDL with dim >> list [3,5]? >> >> We've/I've been calling it a 2-D PDL with dim sizes 3 and 5 (as in "dim 0 >> has size 3, and dim 1 has size 5"), or alternatively a 3x5-PDL. Its first >> row would be called a 3-PDL or a 1-D PDL with size 3. >> >> > My preference is "3x5 PDL" as "2d 3x5 PDL" is a bit redundant. > > I'd say no to "3-PDL" - I'd prefer "1-D PDL with size 3". > > "A PDL with shape 3 by 5" sounds good to me! > > Matt > > -- > Matthew Kenworthy / Assistant Professor / Leiden Observatory > Niels Bohrweg 2 (#463) / P.O. Box 9513 / 2300 RA Leiden / NL > >
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