Re: Resiliency To New Data Requirements

> My suggestion for most general uses only a single concept: set.

In my search for the most general method of representing things, it appears I may have re-invented via trial and error what is essentially the basic part of lambda calculus and set theory. What lambda calculus calls expression, and what set theory calls set, is what I have been calling thing. Thing is the general form of all things.

You say tomahto (set), I say tomato (thing). I choose thing because in layman's language we say "a chair is a thing", "a car is a thing"; while in set-theory language we could say "a chair is a set", "a car is a set".

Some may find this old post amusing:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.databases/browse_frm/thread/e460c14f722d89a9/0e3faf55b19f9077?lnk=gst&q=%22everything+is+a+thing%22&rnum=3#0e3faf55b19f9077

So it may turn out that we are all partially blind and groping the very same elephant (thing/set/expression).

The Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
I see, quoth he, the Elephant
Is very like a snake!

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain, quoth he;
'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: Even the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!?

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
I see, quoth he, the Elephant
Is very like a rope!

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen! Received on Mon Aug 07 2006 - 18:28:19 CEST