On 13 Dec 2021, at 19:05, Kevin Bourrillion wrote: > … > Yes, in general I am sure that I can't accomplish actual ground up > non-cyclical definition-definitions here. I think it should suffice to be > descriptive enough for the reader to course-correct their previous notions > in this direction (provided they want to).
Yup, I see that’s how it’s working in there. > > >> Saying “unit” is more mysterious. You certainly don’t mean units of >> measure, or functional programming unit types. Are you meaning to imply >> that it has no subparts which might also be termed units? > > > Oh, I actually do not want to imply irreducibility at all. That all values > have had that property in Java is a fact I would label as > incidental-not-essential., > > Glob, gob, blob, hunk, chunk, piece, ..... In that case I claim unit has the wrong connotation, since it does (often) come with an expectation of irreducibility. With that in mind I like the unassuming term “piece”, or those other words. If you are still in thesaurus mode: https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/portion > > > >> That’s OK as long as you have today’s primitives (which I like to call >> “scalar primitives”) and of course references (which are also scalars). By >> “scalar” I mean an item of data that is not composed of further scalars. >> > > A tangent, but there's enough math major still in me to object to this. :-) > Scalars are scalar because they scale things! This would be more similar to > a one-dimensional vector space than to a scalar.... imho the best > adjective for today's primitives is "primitive" and I'll plead my case > about that soon too. :-) Sure, that’s a good position for math majors like you and me. And I’m sure you/they/we really squirm in the presence of discussions about “vector processing units” and “vector ISAs”. But the squirm-worthy folks that define VPUs also use the term “scalar” to mean “the value that’s in a vector lane”, and they assuredly do not mean that “scalar” can be identified with “single-lane vector”.
