Re: identifying entities across database updates (was: Is a function a relation?)

On Jul 13, 3:12 pm, rp_at_raampje.(none) (Reinier Post) wrote:
> ... most mathematical descriptions
> I've seen reason about sets of objects.  For instance, in the definition
> of state machines, we have a set of symbols and a set of states.
> But these are essentially placeholders.  The definition doesn't
> describe or prescribe what symbols or states are, it only describes
> how they are combined into a state machine.  Anything may take the role
> of a symbol or state, although the formulation suggests otherwise.
> There is no such thing as a universal division of objects into
> symbols and the non-symbols, or states and the non-states,
> independent of a particular formalization in which these
> terms are used, such as a particular formalization of state machines.

Bad example. It is computer science that defines state machines as 5 tuple something. When I see 5 (and CS routinely offers definitions longer than that!) tuple I just stop reading. Compare it to math where automaton is defined by matrix action in a vector space. As somebody from math forum eloquently put it "computer buffs tend to complicate things". Received on Tue Jul 14 2009 - 02:07:58 CEST