Hi Ladislav, On Monday, April 18, 2005, 6:26:01 PM, you wrote:
LM> IOW, when we have got a representation, it is time to "forget" about it LM> and to try to describe the properties that do *not* depend on the LM> representation. Some properties become "accessible" if we "forget" the LM> details. (It is not obvious why this is true.) Sure. And, there's space for discussing the representation too, sometimes. The reason why some of us here tend to spend more time discussing the representation instead of the number is that we're more interested in REBOL than in math. ;-) But, you're right that we shouldn't confuse the two things, and probably I did sometimes. LM> Would you consider it right to say that 1 / 3 and 2 / 6 are two distinct LM> but identical rational numbers? (This surely has got some "rational" LM> core, because set-theoretically these *are* two distinct representations LM> of one rational number). If we refer to the character strings "1 / 3" and "2 / 6" in your email message, they are two distinct representations of the same number. LM> there are many distinct representations of one rational number, the LM> rational number in question is just one rational number. I agree. However, were we discussing rational numbers, or how REBOL represents them? ;-) >>This problem goes away as soon as you say "two distinct >>representations of the same value". LM> Yes! That is what I am trying to say all the time! "Two distinct LM> representations of the same value" is it. So we got to an agreement, in the end. :) Took so much time if you think about it... when did we start this discussions? It's interesting anyway how many discussions are actually most of the time terminology discussions. The main reason is that different people don't always share the same definitions for the terms they use. Or, they just don't care and write a message quickly, trying to explain with whatever term seems to work. ;) Maybe I do this more often than I should. >>I agree that an "abstract", i.e. implementation-independent, >>description of REBOL is useful; however, only Carl could really >>provide us with something like that. LM> I have shown above, that in a specific case he didn't succeed to do it LM> just because he didn't "forget enough implementation details". Moreover, LM> my article inspired his short Same? function description, see the LM> evolution of the Same? function help. This proves (for me at least) that LM> the last statement needn't always be true. Yes, but what I mean is that we can never say for sure what is an implementation detail and what is not. Regards, Gabriele. -- Gabriele Santilli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- REBOL Programmer Amiga Group Italia sez. L'Aquila --- SOON: http://www.rebol.it/ -- To unsubscribe from the list, just send an email to lists at rebol.com with unsubscribe as the subject.
