User:Nayru25/sandbox/A Style Guide for Boolean Connectives

= Motivation =

Currently (May 2018) the pages for the Logical Connectives are a mess of competing styles and presentations, which hinders comprehension. I propose this style guide to define a common presentation for all the boolean connectives.

= Scope =

The article Logical connectives, and the articles

= Boolean Connectives =

Article Layout
With exception to Negation and Material Conditional, as they have a more general scope.


 * The Lead section should
 * Provide the unicode characters for the connective so people can copy and paste it
 * Have a link to the equivalent logic gate, if there is one
 * Include the relevant Venn Diagram
 * Discuss prominent alternative notation
 * Sections should include, in this order
 * A section for the definition, including
 * A sub-section on the truth table of the connective.
 * If there is anything more to add on the Venn diagram for the connective, a sub-section for that.
 * A sub-section on equivalent logical formulas
 * Other alternative notation, not noted in the Lead
 * History, if any of note

Typesetting of Formulas

 * In general, use  to display logical formulas.
 * Use math upper case roman letters, that is $$P$$ not $$p$$ for terminal symbols.
 * Prefer $$P,Q,R,S$$ over $$A,B,C,D$$
 * Current exceptions include
 * Logical_conjunction and Logical_disjunction, which uses $$A$$ and $$B$$, because there's too much to change at the moment
 * Material_implication, which uses $$p$$ and $$q$$, because of historical reasons
 * This is mostly fine because material implication has a broader reach than the boolean operators
 * Logical_biconditional which uses $$P$$ and $$Q$$ until about halfway, then uses $$A$$ and $$B$$ because of the images

Connectives
In general,

Truth Tables
For boolean connectives the table should look like

using T and F for the truth-values, and without the headings "Input" and "Output", as a boolean connective expresses a relation, not a computation.

= Logic Gates =

Article Layout

 * The Lead section should have a link to the equivalent boolean connective.

Typesetting of Operators

 * Terminal symbols should be upper case roman, sans-serif (i.e. A over a )
 * Prefer A, B, C to P, Q, R

Truth Tables
For logic gates, the truth table should look like

using 1 and 0 as the truth-values, and starting with "0 0" at the top.

(This appears to be the style used in the articles on logic gates; I would prefer to start with "1 1", but there may be some reason I'm not aware of that they start with "0 0")

= Engineering Notation =

Engineering notation is recommended when writing formulae for logic gates.

Typesetting

 * Use
 * Use math upper case roman letters, that is $$A$$ not $$a$$ for terminal symbols
 * Prefer $$A,B,C,D$$ over $$P,Q,R,S$$