[r-t] Candidate definition #10

[Ian Partridge]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 4:03 PM, Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org> wrote:
> There are S factorial possible
> different rows, which are called the extent at stage S.

I suggest: "There are S factorial possible different rows, which are
together known as the extent at stage S." Rationale: 'call' is an
overloaded verb in ringing and is probably best avoided unless you're
actually talking about calls in methods.

> B is true if
> every possible distinct row of the extent at stage S occurs at least N
> times in B and no more than N+1 times, for some N>=0.

I suggest: "B is true if every possible distinct row of the extent at
stage S occurs either N or N+1 times in B, for some N>=0." Rationale:
simpler.

> This definition is more liberal about lengths than some people are
> comfortable with. If the consensus within the ringing community is
> that we would like to exclude certain length ranges for certain
> stages, for historical continuity, these are better added as explicit
> special cases outside the definitions.

I disagree. They are better added as explicit special cases _inside_
the definitions. I would expand paragraph 4 to say that where a peal
is rung on stage S < 8, it must contain at least 5040 rows. This
wouldn't add much to the length of the new definitions.

> What do others think?

A good start that completely ignores the whole issue of "methods" ;-)

-- 
Ian Partridge

City of Southampton Orchestra - http://www.csorchestra.org