Re: [Chicken-users] Some findings (WAS: Re: ANN: new eggs "llrb-syntax" and "llrb-tree")

[Jörg F. Wittenberger]

Am 27.10.2015 um 14:26 schrieb John Cowan:
> "Jörg F. Wittenberger" scripsit:
> 
>> [1] http://www.webfunds.org/guide/ricardian_implementations.html
> 
> I read this with interest, but what does it have to do with David Ricardo?

For an authoritative answer you would have to ask Ian Grigg.  We did not
come up with that name.

>From "Askemos"-point of view the link to David Ricardo is weak.  We came
up with the essentially same concept and did not learn about each other
until more than a decade later.

A "Ricardian Contract" is strictly a payment instrument.  Our contracts
in Askemos are just "code".  So where Ricardian Contract expects both
parties to know valid input is always a payment message and how to do
double entry bookkeeping we need to supply the code to do so.  But the
concepts both expect that we can NOT simply point fingers to a computer
and say "this machine's output is what the contract is".  In case of
doubt/conflict we need to proof the contract to a judge.  And a judge is
hopefully NOT a machine.  That's why we go to all the trouble.

So much what makes Askemos's contracts and Ricardian contracts to be
basically the same thing.  That's why I tend to use the name.  After all
adding a fixed script for bookkeeping specializes Askemos's contracts to
Ricardian contracts so to speak.


So now where is the link?  When you issue payment instruments as we
envision.  Or better: as it has been done for centuries and ought to
just be done the same way in the net.  Then you essentially pay in
obligations ("bill of exchange" etc.).  Your
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage defines how easy is
is to fulfill those obligations eventually.

David Ricardo and comparative advantage are close enough.

Let me repeat the disclaimer: Ian might have had a different reason to
choose the name.  So better ask him for the real story.

Best

/Jörg