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Re: Reality check needed ....

• To: michael.h.kay@n...
• Subject: Re: Reality check needed ....
• From: John Cowan <jcowan@r...>
• Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 08:16:37 -0400 (EDT)
• Cc: bill.dehora@p..., jlowery@s... ('Jeff Lowery'), mc@x... ('Mike Champion'), xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <001601c23df2$b33e4de0$6401a8c0@pcukmka> from "Michael Kay" at Aug 07, 2002 10:13:31 AM

Michael Kay scripsit:

> I had assumed it was obvious to everyone in this community that names,
> in general, should not carry implicit information about the objects they
> refer to: or at any rate, that there are better ways of representing
> this information than packing it into three bytes of the name.

On that view, all objects should be given completely arbitrary names
(OIDs, e.g.) with no connection to human understanding at all, and
defenders of this position are not lacking.  Me, I think it's just
quirky that the 3rd St. Music School (in New York) is on 13th St.

This argument is usually posed in terms of human-intelligible names
lacking stability (Russia > Soviet Union > Russia, e.g.), but good
counterexamples exist: the name "Roma" has referred to exactly the
same city for the last 2756 years.

-- 
One art / There is                      John Cowan <jcowan@r...>
No less / No more                       http://www.reutershealth.com
All things / To do                      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
With sparks / Galore                     -- Douglas Hofstadter

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