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Terminology: Disambiguate "Table"

Open aszepieniec opened this issue 4 months ago • 0 comments

In the code base, the word "table" refers to two things. In both cases it's a 2-d array of base or extension field elements, so the word "table" does seem justified; but I think the two senses may benefit from some disambiguation none the less.

  1. The isolated trace of a chiplet such as processor or hash or u32 etc.
  2. The concatenation of all chiplet-traces along with table-linking columns, degree-lowering columns, and randomizer columns.

Most of the time when sense (2) is used it is distinguished from (1) through the qualifier "master", i.e., master_main_table, master_aux_table, etc. I think the word "master" is a poor choice because it sounds like just another chiplet, one that comes with a "slave" counterpart.

I suggest using the word "aet" for sense (2). So any "table" is always in reference to a chiplet in isolation of the rest of the architecture; and "aet" is always what the prover accesses.

aszepieniec avatar Sep 28 '24 19:09 aszepieniec