[Python-Dev] type categories

[Oren Tirosh]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2002 at 03:51:13PM -0400, Andrew Koenig wrote:
> Oren> Can you give a more concrete example of what could a cartesian
> Oren> product of type predicates actually stand for in Python?
> 
> Consider my TotallyOrdered suggestion from before.  I would like to
> have a way of saying that for any two types T1 and T2 (where T1 might
> equal T2) chosen from the set {int, long, float}, < imposes a total
> ordering on values of those types.
> 
> Come to think of it, that's not really a Cartesian product.  Rather,
> it's a claim about the members of the set union(int,union(long, float)).

Isn't it easier to just spell it union(int, long, float)?

Your example helped me make the distinction between two very types of type
categories:

1. Type categories based on form: presence of methods, call signatures, etc.
2. Type categories based on semantics.

Semantic categories only live within a single form category. A method call
cannot possibly be semantically correct if it isn't well-formed: it will
cause a runtime error. But a method call that is well-formed may or may not
be semantically correct.

A language *can* verify well-formedness. It cannot verify semantical 
correctness but it can provide tools to help developers communicate their
semantic expectations.

Form-based categories may be used to convey semantic categories: just add
a dummy method or member to serve as a marker. It can force an interface
with an otherwise identical form to be intentionally incompatible to help 
you detect semantic categorization errors.

The opposite is not true: semantic categories cannot be used to enforce 
well-formedness. You can mark a class as implementing the "TotallyOrdered"
interface when it doesn't even have a comparison method. 

A similar case can happen when using inheritance for categorization: a 
subclass may modify the call signatures, making the class form-incompatible 
but it still retains its ancestry which may be interpreted in some cases as 
a marker of a semantic category.
 
	Oren