[pd-discuss] Using an intermediate language for pdcalc proposal

Thu Mar 17 01:24:46 UTC 2011

Primavera De Filippi wrote:
> Hi Platonides,
> how is the whole thing going ? are you still interested in translating
> the pdcalculators into an intermediary language?
> did you get any information from Maarten? do you need any help or anything?
> I think it would be nice to try and implement at least one of the
> pdcalculators, as an experiment, to see how it works and whether it
> could be useful.
> Please keep me updated about all this !
> Thanks, 
> Primavera

Hi Primavera,
(and other list readers, too)

I originally thought that the intermediary language would just encode a
fixed algorithm. However, I later talked with Maarten and he mentioned
rule based systems. We both agree that they are ugly to work with (lots
of and conditions). But I think that the syntax should be mapeable to a
ruleset. That would allow to work with uncertainity for
publicdomaincalculators usage. Or solve from a different path when
missing some information.
Even with a naive algorithm, that makes it more complex.

I have also looked at http://wiki.okfn.org/PublicDomainCalculators/xml
format but those goto and <evaluate> are evil.