Re: Proposal: 6NF

Jan Hidders wrote:
> vc wrote:
> > Jan Hidders wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > A much simpler example. Let {0, 1, 2, 3} be a set of four integers
> > with addition modulo 4. Then, none of its subsets, except {0} and
> > {0, 2}, retains the addition mod 4 operation which makes the idea of
> > 'subtype as subset' utterly silly, [....].
>
> You keep on making the same mistake. The expression a +[mod 4] b has a
> well defined result if a and b are from any subset of {0, 1, 2, 3}.

Consider the subset {2, 3}. What is the result of (2+3) mod 4 ? If you say it's '1', what is '1'? There is no such element in {2, 3}.

>
> > Also, the OOP hypothetical programmer would expect that a subtype
> > would have, informally speaking, *more*
> > properties/operations/'methods', not less: the basic class properties
> > plus some new ones. So at the intuitive level with typical languages
> > like Java, 'subtype as subset' does not make much sense either, at
> > least with respect to even the simplest mathematical objects.
>
> No, also from that perspective it works correctly. The superclass A
> would contain objects that understand the message plusMod4 with an
> argument that is in class A and return a result in class A. The objects
> in the subclass B would also understand this message with an argument
> in class A and return a result in class A.

Objects in subclass B = {2, 3} won't understand 'plusMod4' because the operation does not exist in B, it was lost as soon as you've subsetted A = {0,1,2,3}. That is of course if you understand 'operation' in the ordinary mathematical sense such that the set is closed under it. If you have to go outside the set in question, it ain't no operation no more in the accepted mathematical sense.

>So there is no problem with
> defining the extensions of class B such that it is a subset of class A.
>
> So, again, no problem whatsoever.
>
> -- Jan Hidders
Received on Thu Oct 19 2006 - 16:06:35 CEST