[Attempto] Statement id in article

[Tobias Kuhn]

Hi,

On 14.12.2011 11:29, Changyuan Yu wrote:
>    As human beings, we do not need 'ID'. But when programing,
> especially do remote sentence modification, 'ID' make sense, we
> operate direct on java object when coding in java, but we can not
> access a java object remotely. So we have to operate on the 'ID' of an
> object, and the java program map the operation on 'ID' to operation on
> the object it represents. This make both client side and server side
> simple.

As I said, I don't think that sentence IDs are a bad thing, but we 
shouldn't introduce them without more thinking about what a sentence 
really is. Otherwise we will run into problems later, if IDs do not 
identify sentences but something different. We need to have a clear 
abstract notion of a sentence, and this does not need to be a one-to-one 
mapping to Java objects. E.g. if a sentence is changed then the same 
Java object might become a new sentence with a new ID. We should clearly 
distinguish between the abstract model and its implementation.

>    Yes, we can do something like 'change the 2nd sentence of "An apple
> is a fruit." to "Every apple is a fruit."',  but I still think
> something like 'change the sentence with ID 234 to "Every apple is a
> fruit".' is better.

This example does not look very convincing to me. The second version is 
only slightly simpler. Does this really justify the use of IDs? Maybe 
so, but only if we find a consistent and elegant solution.

Your example only works if each *occurrence* of a sentence gets its own 
ID: Two occurrences of a sentence with the text "An apple is a fruit" 
would need two different IDs, because otherwise you would have to say 
'change the 2nd sentence with ID 234 to "Every apple is a fruit"'. I 
don't think that it makes sense to define that there can be distinct 
sentences with the same text.


Regards,
Tobias