Re: gEDA-user: wishful UI

[Andrew Poelstra <asp11@xxxxxx>]

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 07:32:30PM -0600, John Doty wrote:
> 
> On Aug 13, 2010, at 7:20 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:
> 
> > 
> >>> But "property" is such a nice, clean, simple building block.  Why
> >>> pollute it by adding more functionality and making it more complex?
> >> 
> >> Because then you can extend the concept without limit. It's like
> >> "function" in mathematics. You can construct functions from
> >> functions. But if such constructs were no longer functions, you'd
> >> get stuck.
> > 
> > To abuse your analogy, our properties is like "constants" in
> > mathematics.  Classes would be "functions".
> 
> Except in the proposal, classes cannot be composed of other classes.
>

That's a trivial change: jumping from a "class" as a collection of
properties to a "class" as collection of properties/classes is an
easy mental jump, and conceptually makes sense.

Jumping from a "property" as a name-value pair to a "property" as
a name-value pair -and- collection of properties, is a big conceptual
change.


> ...
> 
> >  Creating a single object that has to act as both a
> > name-value pair *and* an arbitrary container is not a good idea.
> 
> You offer no reasoned support for this opinion.
>

You're using one word - property - to express two entirely different
concepts. Not only is this difficult to think about, it would be almost
impossible to program without separating the two behind the scenes.

The word "class" is usually a synonym for "set", which is a concept
that invites recursion. "Property", however, is usually a synonym
for "attribute", something that isn't recursive. That's a very
important distinction.

You talk about object-classification failing as a method of AI - but
what you mean is that it fails for /general/ AI. The specific AI we
are talking about - autorouting and autoplacing - already works by
classifying its objects (as vias, traces, components, nets, etc).


Andrew




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