Talk:De Bruijn notation

Wagon?
"wagon"? Seriously? Never heard that in my whole 20 years of programming language researcher. What obscure resources did that terminology come from? (Maybe the original document introduced this terminology, but for sure, it did not catch on, and it is not helpful to teach this to the public.) Andreasabel (talk) 12:45, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Polish notation
Near the bottom, this notation is likened to polish notation. According to the wiki page on polish notation, the operator comes before the operands; however, in DeBruijn notation, the operand comes before the operator:

(M)N

Here, the applicator wagon (M) is the operand and the N is the operator, IIUC. Thus, it appears DeBruijn is like *reverse* polish notation. Am I missing something?

Cppljevans (talk) 15:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That note about Polish notation is probably an irrelevant distraction. To be precise, though, the operator in an application M N is the space separating M and N, which are both operands. A proper Polish notation would have written it as @ M N (or @ N M), where @ represents the application operator. I'll remove the note. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 09:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Improper template, but more--improper capitalization throughout article as well
De Bruijn should always have an initial capital D when it starts a sentence, just like anything else. We don't capitalize copper all the time, but we do when it starts a sentence. And our Wikipedia article is at "Copper", with no "lowercase" template. We don't capitalize the newton all the time, but we do when it starts a sentence. And our Wikipedia article is at "Newton", with no "lowercase" template. We don't capitalize "heat index", but our article is at Heat index, with no "lowercase" template.

And it is so used at the start of a sentence in this article and properly capitalized there. That alone is enough to make the lowercase template inappropriate for this article.

But in this case it is also much more than that. De Bruin should start with a D when it starts a sentence, but also it should be De Bruin with a capital D any time this surname is not preceded by a given name or a title.

See, for example, United States Government Printing Office Style Manual, Chapter 3, Capitalization rules:
 * 3.13. In foreign names such particles as d', da, de, della, den, du, van, and von are capitalized unless preceded by a forename or title. Individual usage, if ascertainable, should be followed.
 * Da Ponte; Cardinal da Ponte
 * Den Uyl; Johannes den Uyl; Prime Minister den Uyl
 * Du Pont; E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
 * Van Rensselaer; Stephen van Rensselaer
 * Von Braun; Wernher von Braun
 * but d'Orbigny; Alcide d'Orbigny; de la Madrid; Miguel de la Madrid

Gene Nygaard (talk) 05:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)