> In article <33545E78.4983@maths.anu.edu.au>, Graham Matthews
> +No its not irrelevant. The question was why did JO chose the "everything
> +is a string" paradigm, when he could have chosen the "everything is an
> +integer", or "everything is a list" paradigm? This correspondence shows
> +the stupidity of the "everything is a string is so powerful" argument.
Michael L. Siemon wrote:
> Sorry, but that does not follow. Bijections are all very well (hey, I'm
> a topologist by training :-)), but human predispositions are relevant
> here, and most people are more intuitively at home with "reading" a
> string "1.0 + 3" as a sequence of characters than, e.g., processing a
> text into a Goedel enumeration, (or more directly to the point, going
> the other way, from the integer to the text.)
You have missed the point! I am arguing against the claim that
"everything is a string is so *powerful*". This claim is rubbish since
"everything is a list" is just as powerful. I agree that "everything is
a string" might be more convenient, humanly intelligible, etc, but thats
a different question. My point is that most people claim "power" for the
"everything is a string" approach, when in fact they mean "convenience,
etc". So lets be precise and argue convenience, reliability, etc and
forget this marketing hype of "power".
This leads to the question of why do you think the "everything is a
string" approach is so convenient. As far as I can see its less
convenient than allowing a mixture of typed objects.
> Simplicity and uniformity *are* relevant. One might argue that it matters
> not *what* primitive representation is used, but I would laugh at anyone
> who seriously thought that non-string representations were "simpler" than
> strings.
What about list representations?
graham
--
I was gonna be your Romeo
You were gonna be my Juliet
These days you don't wait on Romeos
You wait on that welfare cheque
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