Re: Entity and Identity

Nilone wrote:

>BTW, I also came across the following article, which looks
>interesting:
>
>RELATIONAL MODEL FOR PROGRAM SEMANTICS
>http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi/Punnam%20Pradeep%20Kumar.pdf?acc_num=kent1226606883

I skimmed it, and I don't get it. The presentation is clear, but I don't see that it's doing anything interesting or new.

It has nothing to do with the relational database model, which is about recording information about the world in *finite* relations.

Tt defines the semantics of a program as a relation, noticing that nondeterminism can be described this way, but it doesn't mention that such relations are known in the literature as (state) transition systems and have been used for this purpose since at least the early 1950s, and probably decades earlier. It goes on about Hoare and Smythe orderings on programs, but the significance doesn't become clear to me.

-- 
Reinier