Re: Two meanings of "data structures"

erk wrote:

> As an aside (hopefully this isn't better placed in a different thread),
> I'm still mulling over the difference between "atomic" and "composite"
> types. I'm reading Watt's book (referenced by Dawn in Marshall's
> "Choice quote" thread) and he doesn't truly define the difference, if
> there is one.

I remember way back, on first day of Freshman year Physics, we discussed what a "law" of Physics was. The professor came clean up front and said a law is simply something we've tested so many times, which has behaved the same way every single time, that we are willing to assume it will always behave the same way. They went on to say that a "law" (quotes added for emphasis) can be true but irrelevant, such as gravity in the context of subatomic particles and distances in small numbers.

I bring this in because it was the first time I encountered such powerful terms as "laws of Physics" as subordinate to the human reason that discovered them, and which determines their relevance.

So my point with this saga is that the same data is both composite and atomic, depending upon what you are doing.

I like the ideas shaping up in other threads recently that say atomicity and 1NF is defined for relational operations, but any particular type may still be parsable by the type engine.

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Kenneth Downs
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