<n> versus <i>

[Peter Dobcsanyi]

On Mon, Sep 01, 2003 at 10:20:49AM -0400, Leonard Soicher wrote:
> I vote to leave things as they are (at least for now with
> the release imminent).

Whatever way we go the change is minimal in programming or editorial
terms. However conceptually, it would be much better to clean this up
now than after the release.

> I would *not* like to see <n> dropped, as non-negative integers play
> such an important role in the external representation,

That is indeed the case, so much so that currently we don't have negative
integers in any semantically correct document.

> and I believe that tags should as much as possible say what we mean.

Agreed. In fact, one of my "choices" was:

> Peter Dobcsanyi wrote:
> >    - use <i> or <n> in <image> in a way which reflects the
> >      semantics of the particular function more precisely.

That means that (currently) we should not use <i> at all.

I just wanted to point out the inconsistency in the current use of <i>
and <n>. Dropping (the use of) <i> until a very good reason arises for
re-introducing it is equally fine with me.

--             ,
    Peter Dobcsanyi