Re: Terminology question

pamelafluente_at_libero.it wrote:

>>Actually,  I liked "data source" best of all the terms you proposed.  The
>>only way in which that term might be misleading

In other words, you habitually flail about in aimless ignorance until someone puts you on the spot by asking you what the hell you think you are doing.

> Take for instance all the concept of object oriented programming
> (inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation, interfaces, etc...). There
> is no way you can get their *real* meaning if you do not apply everyday
> them in some very large project. You only assume to kno: but probably
> you dont.

All object oriented proponents only assume to know--even those who apply them every day in some very large project. For instance, define "object".

I direct your attention to Dijkstra's comments regarding the illusive power of elixirs.

> Take for istance the most basic:
>
> "A logically coherent collection of related real-world data
> assembled for a specific purpose."
>
> if I write the names of my friends on a piece of paper, that would fit
> the above. Bob you would laught at me if I call it a "database".Ah ah.

Actually, you would do well to listen to what Bob actually says instead of trying to put your own ignorance into his mouth. A list of friends on a piece of paper is, indeed, a database.

> Well I could argue that is in fact a dbms because there is also some
> service attached provided by myself. Ah ah.

If you have some systematic way to manage that database, then you have a database management system that includes you and the paper and all of the other tools comprising the system. Probably a piss-poor dbms, but a dbms nevertheless. Neither the piece of paper nor the list of names themselves are systems; thus, your argument that either the piece of paper or the list of names is a dbms would fall flat.

To illustrate: You could argue that a tire is a transportation system with equal validity.

  And it is probably smarter
> that any other dbms you could find around, although of limited capacity
> and speed. Well, I could buy more paper and hire a few slaves... Ah ah

There you go anthropomorphizing again. You won't ever become very smart if you continue to lean on that crutch.

> Definitions are an arrival point from certain persons, and a starting
> point for other persons.

Meaningless nonsense.

> The first often think that the definition is too narrow. The latter
> often think that it is too generical and could fit many things.

Further nonsense.

> After all a definition is always tautological because based on other
> definitions.

Here again, you repeat your deconstructionist nonsense that words are ultimately meaningless and communication pointless. I know that's fashionable among intellectual cripples in europe, but I suggest you try to rise above your current limitations.

  In math it is useful to define some (undefined, but
> usually intuitive) assioms and the derive everything from that.

Define the undefined?!? Gibberish. Do better.

  But in
> real life we could assume that everything we know is the result of
> working knowledge, and does not require definition. Like we do not
> bother to define axiomatic conceps, we could just assume an intuitive
> comprehension of what we know.

I highly recommend Gilovich's _How We Know What Isn't So_.

Plonk! Received on Wed Sep 06 2006 - 16:47:11 CEST