Talk:Zilde

Value versus glyph

It may be cleaner to separate the value Zilde from the glyph Zero-tilde. I think Zilde refers to the value and not the glyph because I'd feel comfortable saying of a scalar that its "shape is Zilde". --Marshall (talk) 12:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

You might feel comfortable with that, but the glyph (with no inherent value) it is actually called "apl functional symbol zilde" by Unicode. Zilde is surely the zero-tilde glyph while the value is the empty numeric vector. Adám Brudzewsky (talk) 14:30, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Unicode isn't an authority on the English language as it pertains to APL (it doesn't even get to say what the glyph is called, only the code point). Our goal is to document APL as it is actually talked about. --Marshall (talk) 15:29, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The original NARS manual that introduced Zilde is pretty clear about this: "Zilde is the constant empty numeric vector". Since the name does seem to be used for the glyph as well (although I'd probably call it "the Zilde character"), I've chosen to make this article about both. I tried to make a separate article on Zilde (glyph) and found that there just wasn't enough information to merit a second article, so I will leave the two concepts merged. --Marshall (talk) 14:59, 4 May 2020 (UTC)