Re: By The Dawn's Normal Light
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 15:04:49 GMT
Message-ID: <lwPed.298373$MQ5.140229_at_attbi_s52>
"Paul" <paul_at_test.com> wrote in message news:417ba019$0$33629$ed2619ec_at_ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net...
> Marshall Spight wrote:
> > There is also no broad agreement for a definition of "atomic value."
>
> I see a fairly clear definition:
>
> A value is atomic (with respect to a system) iff that value has no
> internal structure from the point of view of that system.
All you've really done is push the definition off to the definition of "internal structure." What is that? Does a date have internal structure? It likely has a method getYear(), getMonth(), etc. OTOH its internal representation may simply be a long. But if we can't decide whether it has internal structure without reference to its implementation, then "atomic" is not a logical concept, but an implementation concept, and hence has no part to play in conversations about what happens at the logical level.
We've had these debates over and over, and no concensus has emerged. I really don't think there's anything useful to be learned from thinking about the phrase "atomic values."
Marshall Received on Sun Oct 24 2004 - 17:04:49 CEST