Re: What databases have taught me

Bob Badour wrote:
>
> But the point is the set of values is not the data type. The data type
> is both the set of values and the set of operations. Making up a new
> operation does not alter the data type because that operation was always
> there even if never previously expressed.
> [...]
> And what I am saying is we don't really define anything that wasn't
> already there and what we choose as defining operations are quite
> arbitrary. The data type existed before we defined anything just as the
> values exist before we ever express them.

If I understand you correctly (iffy), you are saying that a data type is the set of value, and the set of functions on those values *whether those functions are reified or not.*

In other words, the type integer includes the function

power: int, int -> int

whether it's in the standard library, or we write it ourselves using multiplication, or even if we couldn't actually link to it at all at this time.

Marshall Received on Sat Jul 01 2006 - 20:08:48 CEST