Josh> On Tuesday 13 March 2007 07:26, Eric Baum wrote: >> Is there some reason why it is not the most natural thing to look >> at the Helevetica Reader (as with pretty much any proper noun) as >> an instance in the class of font readers? It inherits pretty much >> everything from existing font readers, except a new method or >> methods (which themselves are refinements of old methods) for >> recognizing text.
Josh> "Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which Josh> could only have originated in California." - Edsger Dijkstra Josh> To me, the OOP metaphor way over-complicates things. When you Josh> learn a new font, your new module feeds off of the same Josh> lower-level edge-finders and whatnot, and feeds into the same Josh> higher-level word and phrase recognizers. It passes the same Josh> reverse-flow expectations traffic (from above: what word might Josh> be next? to below: look in that spot just to the right of Josh> *here*). Josh> In an evolutionary account of where these modules came from (or Josh> a market one), there is clearly inheritance. But you seem to be Josh> implying that there would be a Reader object that describes the Josh> whole shebang and specifies the position and connections of the Josh> new character-recognizer in it. I think the decision to Josh> split/copy the character recognizer is almost certainly local Josh> and would not involve a formal higher architecture spec. It Josh> would get whatever feedback it needed in the form of something Josh> akin to price signals, allowing a global Pareto optimality from Josh> purely local decisions. Are you suggesting that there is in no sense a decision made that there is a new font to be learned (and possibly reserving physical space). In other words, you think that I learn individual characters locally, not as a whole font? Do you think I do that for a new language? Then how would you learn 2 or three separate languages (or fonts) (or games, or subjects) at the same time? Maybe what you are saying is that there is a decision to split and learn a new font, and apportion the same input output etc to it, but this decision is in some sense made locally or maybe by some emergent distributed computation. If so, I'd like more details on what you have in mind if possible. But surely whatever mechanism you attribute, it wants to be able to do similar kinds of splits and adjustments at numerous different points in the program, so it seems to be much like an instance creation. Maybe the point is, it is like an instance, but what is a market system is the programmer? I have no problem with that, but it doesn't seem to explain the aversion to the OOP metaphor. I would like to understand your point better. What exactly about objects is missing here, and why is it important? Josh> BTW, I can see how a system that could manage/redesign the whole Josh> shebang would be USEFUL, but I just don't see how it could work Josh> short of having already built a working AI that is a competent Josh> systems analyst. Josh> Josh Josh> ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: Josh> http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your Josh> options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303 ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
