Term "Configuration"

[Massimo Dentico]

On Mon, 14 Apr 2003 13:55:11 -0700 (PDT), Brian T Rice <water@tunes.org> wrote:

> The majority of your reply was a lot of speculation and off-topic, which I
> will take to mean that this question is decided.

Ok, go with "Configurations are some collection of objects and relationships
which hold over them".


> On Mon, 14 Apr 2003, Massimo Dentico wrote:
>> [..]
>> Correct me if I am wrong, you are saying: in this context, don't insist
>> on the distinction between superficial syntax and semantics because it
>> is not particularly meaningful. [..]

Forget the rest that I have written about languages, it was collateral
and unfortunate given the incomprehension produced.


> I am /not/ talking about languages or syntax. The only reason I mentioned
> them was that syntactic structures have a notion of configuration among
> the syntactic objects they are composed of, and there is no further
> relation. The topic of this thread is "object configurations" and no
> other. Syntax trees apply because they are configurations and because I
> made some points about the /type/ of configuration they are.

Yes, that what I was trying to say awkwardly: my distinction was not
meaningful, the point is that we are interested in relationships between
objects, not syntax or semantics, period.


>> [..]
>> It encompasses data-flow and constraint propagation languages then.
> ^^^^^^^^^
> Huh? It's not a syntactic expression system (a language), it's just a
> meta-object.

I was thinking about the concepts implied by these languages not to these
languages /per se/.


> Furthermore, I have expressed no relation with data-flow or other
> information-flow expression systems. Configurations should not be aware of
> the direction of information flow. A configuration is just "a state of
> affairs": a snapshot, whether actual or potential (and intentionally
> unaware of that status). This should be incredibly intuitive.

Moreover what prompted this comment was a vague reminiscence of some
of such languages (or only one?) which express data-flow precisely in
term of relationships. But I am not sure, I need to check.


> [..]
>> Comments and suggestions about "belong" relationship and attribuition
>> will be probably the subject of an upcoming e-mail.
>
> Try to make it concise, please.

Sure. But considering this disastrous exchange, my difficulties of expression,
I am doubting about the utility of this way of progression.

Regards.

--
Massimo Dentico