User talk:Lord Farin

Separate def and cat
I'm not sure. If it is a category that is being defined, I see no problem with including its definition on the actual category page. It was a deliberate direction I went in. (Okay, PropCalc probably shouldn't have been done like this, but for example Category:Naive Set Theory and Category:Symbolic Logic IMO should remain the way they are currently being rendered.

Feel free to argue your case ... --prime mover 06:35, 16 June 2012 (EDT)


 * In my opinion, a category is merely a structure, a means to collect similar results under a common denominator. As such, the category should (IMHO) be separated from the field it describes. Description of fields of research appears to me as a bona fide contribution to the Definition namespace. You will probably say that a 'field of research' is nothing more than (de facto) a category; to me, however, a 'field of research' is a collection of mathematical ideas going in the same direction, whilst a category on ProofWiki is nothing more than what we use to differentiate results and easily locate them - a backbone for the particular interpretation we give to mathematics on ProofWiki. But this is a rather abstract and arbitrary reasoning; perhaps the most compelling argument is that one expects definitions (i.e., descriptions) to be in the Definition namespace. In summary, an analogy: I view the research field as a book (say on the same field) while the category is but the index; I would like to keep them separated. --Lord_Farin 06:48, 16 June 2012 (EDT)


 * How about transclusion then? I'm rather fond of the idea of being able to click on a category and seeing its definition included. --prime mover 07:21, 16 June 2012 (EDT)
 * An acceptable (maybe even good) compromise. Feel free to implement. --Lord_Farin 07:24, 16 June 2012 (EDT)

Warning about FULLPAGENAME
Be wary about using the FULLPAGENAME technique in e.g. section titles. When they are transcluded, they automatically expand out into the name of the page you have transcluded that page into. So, for example: /Formal Grammar in the Definition:Propositional Calculus page will expand to Definition:Propositional Calculus/Formal Grammar but if you then transclude Definition:Propositional Calculus into Category:Propositional Calculus it expands itself into Category:Propositional Calculus/Formal Grammar for which there is no page. So suggest that as a general rule use the explicit page name rather than relying on the Mediawiki software to interpret it. --prime mover 10:11, 16 June 2012 (EDT)


 * That's a good point, better than mine. I use(d) that construct mainly as it is shorter and accommodates for any future moving of the page. But the transclusion hampering (well, technically it's a feature :) ) outweighs this possible benefit. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. --Lord_Farin 10:24, 16 June 2012 (EDT)

Union and Intersection
I have completely refactored these, into a total of 5 separate pages each, and I think I've sorted out the references accurately (nightmare job but now it's done). I draw your attention to Schilling, which may spread over several of these pages but I don't know because I don't have immediate access to it. Feel free to tidy up those refs. --prime mover 22:03, 27 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Though Schilling uses the general notation often, he doesn't introduce it, only the binary cases get special attention. I think the refs are fine as they are now. --Lord_Farin 22:07, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Language quibble
I'm not certain about the usage of the phrase "very similar result". At school I was taught by a colourful character who told the anecdote of a newspaper editor who, when seeing the word "very" in a piece submitted by a journalist, would read it back to him and replace every occurrence of "very" with "bloody" (substitute the expletive of your choice).

Consequently, I'm not sure whether, in the context given:


 * Fubini's Theorem, a very similar result pertaining to integrable functions.

... the term "very" adds anything. If it is similar, IMO that is all that needs to be said:


 * Fubini's Theorem, a similar result pertaining to integrable functions.

Your thoughts? --prime mover 10:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed; it's just so (very :) ) tempting sometimes to use a lot of words... --Lord_Farin 10:53, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of talk pages
Probably not a good idea to just delete talk pages - they go some way to explaining the various processes that have gone on while other contributors were (for example) asleep - even if the talk page itself says something like "Damn - I misnamed this. Can it be renamed?" and so on.

No worries now, I've worked out what happened, but it did confuse me for a moment. In this particular case the misnamed page "B Algebra is Right Cancellable" redirecting to "B-Algebra is Left Cancellable" is truly bizarre, so I'm redirecting it to where you would expect it to go. --prime mover 07:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)