terminological obscurity

[Arthur]

Correct. Of course, people typically collect things in a collection to
have algorithms operate on the elements of a collection, so a collection
of all things that exist would not be useful, and would be difficult to
create.

Well I don't intend to be being quite *that* abstract.

In fact I worked a bit today not far from this domain, at least in my
interpretation of it.

An export routine for a 3d scene. A list is created dynaimcally of
anything in the scene that exists, as it is created - lights,
cameras, geometric objects, textures, include file directions,
overrides of defaults,etc, and etc. (I am exaggerating slightly to
make my point, but little)

A 3d scene is often conceived as a World, The list in some sense
saves state, and about the only qualification for inclusion in the
list is existence.

The list is iterated, and enough about the element determined to be
able to introspect the essential data needed to create relevant
information in a form that can be parsed by an unrelated application,
to therby have the World recreated by that other application.

Even on the output side, since the information needed is determined by
another application, and varies by the identity of the element -
little "homogeneity" is found.

Thinking about which led me to my conclusion.

Which like all my colclusion, remains open to be unconcluded.

Art

 

[Heather Coppersmith]

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 00:38:28 +0200, "Martin v. Löwis"

Well I don't intend to be being quite *that* abstract.

In fact I worked a bit today not far from this domain, at least
in my interpretation of it.

An export routine for a 3d scene. A list is created dynaimcally
of anything in the scene that exists, as it is created - lights,
cameras, geometric objects, textures, include file directions,
overrides of defaults,etc, and etc. (I am exaggerating slightly
to make my point, but little)

A 3d scene is often conceived as a World, The list in some sense
saves state, and about the only qualification for inclusion in
the list is existence.

The list is iterated, and enough about the element determined to
be able to introspect the essential data needed to create
relevant information in a form that can be parsed by an
unrelated application, to therby have the World recreated by
that other application.

Even on the output side, since the information needed is
determined by another application, and varies by the identity of
the element - little "homogeneity" is found.

My criterion for homogeneity is "what happens if I shuffle these
elements?" By this criterion, that list of elements in the World
*is* homogeneous, regardless of the types or the contents of the
data (unless the defaults and/or overrides are somehow cumulative
or implicitly ordered).

OTOH, an individual element's spatial coordinates (be they X, Y,
Z; rho, phi, theta; or something else) are heterogeneous because
if I shuffle them, then the object shows up in a different place
(certain degenerate symmetry cases notably excepted).

Regards,
Heather

 

[Arthur]

You find the term "color" meaningless because there are things it
doesn't apply to? Is there any term in the universe (or, perhaps
even in the English language) that you find meaningful?

Well perhaps we choose to conceptualize in different grammatical
constructs, You do predicates, I do verbs. A list is what it can do
based on its Guido-given capaiblities, which may change tomorrow. A
tuple is different from a list to the extent its behaviors and
capabilities differ from a list. Anything further than that seems to
me to be mposing an order in an unnecessary fashion.

Guido, we know, conceptualizes around "homogenous" and "heterogenous"
in his design thinking.

Which is worth knowing.

As it own kind of information.

Art

 

[Arthur]

My criterion for homogeneity is "what happens if I shuffle these
elements?" By this criterion, that list of elements in the World
*is* homogeneous, regardless of the types or the contents of the
data (unless the defaults and/or overrides are somehow cumulative
or implicitly ordered).

Not in this case, but generally:

I rely on the sequencing of lists, since I rely on a order to events
on the iteration of elements. Shuffle my list, and I break.

I do tend to think of a list as a sequence, not a collection.

OTOH, an individual element's spatial coordinates (be they X, Y,
Z; rho, phi, theta; or something else) are heterogeneous because
if I shuffle them, then the object shows up in a different place
(certain degenerate symmetry cases notably excepted).

But assuming your case holds firmly, why are we filtering the
significance of ordering - if that is the distinction - throught the
words homogenous and hetereogenous. Why do we not speck directly
about the signficance of ordering. In the interest of least action.

Art

 

[Donn Cave]

Correct. Any kind of predicate involving functions requires that
a certain base domain is used on which these functions are total.


Correct. Of course, people typically collect things in a collection to
have algorithms operate on the elements of a collection, so a collection
of all things that exist would not be useful, and would be difficult to
create.

But if you could, it would certainly be a list! I think
you would have to invent a `lazy' implementation, and
of course it doesn't make sense to think of a tuple whose
size isn't comprehended at the time of instantiation.
On the other hand, the collection of all things that ever
have existed or will, might be a tuple ... hm.

Anyway, take

sequence = dict.keys()

To me, all this expresses is, keys that exist in that
dictionary container. To the extent they inherently
conform to any predicate, it isn't a very interesting
one (OK, they're immutable.)

Donn Cave, (e-mail address removed)