[alicebot-archcomm] RE: [alicebot-archcomm]Attribute var

[Kim Sullivan]

> "variable" to me was sounding very one dimensional.

I don't know but to me a "variable" was anything that could change it's
value (ie isn't a constant - which can be either specified directly or with
an identifier). If you take complex numbers, they're already 2d - and having
complex variables is relatively common. And an arithmetic vector can have
any integer dimension, as can any linear vector space (if you get into
really high mathematics, then there can be even fractional dimensions I
think). And from all of these, you can make a variable simply by stating
from where a particular 'x' can take it's value.

If you want an 'n' dimensional variable in AIML, you will probably have to
allow for an 'array' type. You could either adopt a complex system like SETL
has (which is completely dynamic and more or less typeless) or have a more
strict definition like C, Java or Pascal have. Using a setl system would be
relatively easy but IMHO quite difficult to implement (garbage collection
and all that stuff), whereas a more strict system probably requires
additional overhead for managing via AIML itself (and probably programming
knowledge from the AIML author as well).

Kim