• From: Tony Graham <tgraham@a...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2022 12:19:26 +0100

On 14/07/2022 11:27, Michael Kay wrote:
...

A traffic light can only send out a small finite set of messages ("Stop", "Go", "Get Ready") and we wouldn't normally call such a
small set of utterances a language, because it doesn't have
sufficient expressive power; but in any rigorous definition of what a
language is, it's very likely to qualify. There is certainly a
grammar:

SIGNAL := RED | GREEN | AMBER | RED+AMBER

Where RED+AMBER, while allowed by the grammar [2], is mostly a feature
of the UK dialect of the language [1], and BLUE is the Japanese
for GREEN. [1]

Regards,


Tony Graham.
--
Senior Architect
XML Division
Antenna House, Inc.
----
Skerries, Ireland
tgraham@a...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light#Variations
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light#Meanings_of_signals

• References:
  • Is XML a language or a data format?
    • From: Roger L Costello <costello@m...>
  • Re: Is XML a language or a data format?
    • From: Michael Kay <mike@s...>