Requirements for QEDL

MAKV@delphi.com
Sun, 03 Mar 1996 15:13:18 -0500 (EST)

As it follows from the QED manifesto, the QED system will include
a practical formal mathematical language -- "practical" means that usual
mathematical texts ( mostly definitions and proofs ) can be easily
written in such a language.
(Because there is no name for the language in the QED manifesto, let me
use the name QEDL for this language.)

One of the approaches to design such a language may be preliminary
development of the requirements for the language.
(In such a way the design of the programming language ADA was began
by the US Department of Defence in 1975 and a series of more and more
precise descriptions of the requirements had been produced (as far as
I remember these documents were named Paperman, Strawman, Woodman,
Ironman and Steelman.)

One of the obvious requirements to QEDL is the following:

(1) As far as possible usual mathematical notation should be used.

For instance:

(1.1) If i, j -- integer numbers then the sum of i and j should be
denoted as i + j (not as (add i j) ! );

(1.1) If x, y -- real numbers then the sum of x and y should be
denoted as x + y .

Note that from 1.1 and 1.2 it follows that QEDL must be typed --
otherwise it would be impossible to resolve ambiguities in using of
the symbol '+'.

What proponents of "untyped syntax" can say on this matter?


With best regards Victor