Ian Kelly wrote:
On 9/9/06, Ed Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Proposal: High-Power Deference
(AI = 3, please)
Amend Rule 1482 (Precedence between Rules with Unequal Power) by
appending
this text:
If the Rule with the higher Power explicitly says of itself
that it
defers to another Rule (or type of Rule), then such provisions
shall
supercede the Power method for determining precedence.
If a rule would defer to rules of potentially lower power, would there
still be any reason for making that rule so high-powered in the first
place?
Consider:
Rule 5000 (Power=2) "Foo is a number. Foo is 5. This rule defers to
other rules assigning Foo a different value."
Rule 5001 (Power=1) "Foo is 6."
Rule 5002 (Power=1) "Foo is a word."
So far, the deference is useful. But this breaks it:
Rule 5003 (Power=1) "Foo is 5. Foo is a character."
To defer to R5001 alone, R5000 would have to be written something like
Rule 5000 (Power=2) "Foo is a number. Foo is 5. This rule's assignment
of a value to Foo defers to other rules assigning a
different value to Foo."
but at that point, you may as well just write
Rule 5000 (Power=2) "Foo is a number. Foo is 5. Other rules may modify
the value of Foo."
or
Rule 5000 (Power=2) "Foo is a number. Foo is 5. Other rules may modify
the value of Foo without conflicting with this rule."
(Which of these last two versions successfully avoid a conflict? Which
of them attempt to defer?)
