Some may disagree with that definition (really amounts to a convention on how to handle vacuuous products); but I think that I agree with you. Unless others object, I will consider this a bug and make the change. Thanks for pointing this oddity out. Would you mind opening a bugzilla ticket to track this?
Fixed that.
Thanks!
Well, the problem is this: If I need to create some custom discrete distribution that doesn't take on integer values, what interface should I implement? With your model I have no choice but use the ContinuousDistribution interface even though the distribution *isn't* continuous. Does that make sense?
Can you provide a practical example of this? IIUC, what you are really arguing for is changing the int's in the DiscreteDistribution interface to doubles. This has the advantage of greater generality but makes it slightly less convenient for implementors of the most common discrete distributions, where the values are integers.
You're right that the domain of every discrete distribution could be mapped into the integers, but then there should be some mechanism for internalizing this mapping for a particular distribution. Every discrete distribution should have a reference to a Domain object that provides a method for mapping every object of the set into the integers. Using such a scheme you could keep separate interfaces for discrete and continuous distributions. (Actually, the continuous distributions could have a Domain object too).
Hmm, one problem that I am now seeing is in computing moments of "mapped" discrete distributions. Something like what you are describing above will be necessary. So...if there are practical examples out there, I am beginning to think that we need to either a) change the ints to doubles in DiscreteDistribution or b) support "value mapping" in some systematic way.
Phil
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
