>Dear Pat,
>
>> >John,
>> >
>> > My point was not that one could not specify how to draw a line
>> >in logic, but that specifying the line does not actually
>> draw it - for
>> >that you have to translate some bit stream into so motor
>> action, or to
>> >switch the CRT beam on at a particular point, etc.
>>
>> True, but...
>>
>> >My point being, that
>> >organizations do not operate computers to make lights on the
>> front flash
>> >on or off, or as expensive room heaters. The meaning of a computer
>> >system is always the behaviour of the organization that uses it.
>>
>> ... that is rather a stretch. The meaning IS the
>> behavior?? No, the behavior depends (in part) on
>> the meaning: but the meaning is what it is even
>> if nobody acts on the information.
>>
>> A very basic problem with your point is that it
>> seems to force us to adopt a process-based or
>> procedural approach to semantics, which takes us
>> exactly in the reverse direction of the evolution
>> from hard-wired specific codings to assertional
>> ontologies which has got us to the present. This
>> much progress was hard-won, and it would be a
>> great shame to be taken back to UML, or maybe
>> even Fortran, by worries arising from management
>> theory.
>
>MW: I think you are missing the point. Let me make a golfing analogy.
>With a declarative language you can describe the golf course and
>you can describe how a ball behaves when it is hit. But you can't
>hit the ball. So in addition to your declarative language you need
>something that executes instructions. (01)
Fine, I understand and agree with that point,
which hardly needs saying. (You guys do know that
John Sowa and I have been programming computers,
on and off, since the early sixties, right?) But
what I was reacting to was the claim (above) that
the meaning IS the behavior of the organization.
That is exactly the kind of grand-sounding but
b.s. assertion I used to have to live through
when being sent by Xerox on Total Quality Control
tutorials. Its b.s. because (a) it doesn't
actually mean anything when examined carefully,
but (b) it vaguely suggests something
important-sounding, but wrong. (02)
Pat (03)
>This isn't about a process
>approach instead of declarative (for me at least) but about
>understanding the limits of a declarative approach.
>
>Regards
>
>Matthew West
>Reference Data Architecture and Standards Manager
>Shell International Petroleum Company Limited
>Registered in England and Wales
>Registered number: 621148
>Registered office: Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
>
>Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Mobile: +44 7796 336538
>Email: matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx
>http://www.shell.com
>http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
>
>
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