<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 30 December 2015 at 07:07, Colin Putney <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:colin@wiresong.com" target="_blank">colin@wiresong.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><span class="">On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 3:27 PM, Huw Lloyd <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:huw.softdesigns@gmail.com" target="_blank">huw.softdesigns@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>To the degree that your conception is object-oriented, in the deeper sense, it is not a problem. Your object(s) know how to persist themselves and may be considered to be extensive over that persistence -- it is merely that their morphology has changed.<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></span><div>Sure, but that's just hiding the issue behind an abstraction. I'm interested in the mechanics of the change in morphology. If the objects can persist themselves, great, but what technique do they use? </div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I thought that handling a polymorphic structure was half of your problem, Colin? This is one of those cases where this mechanism can be delegated to each successive object. <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><span class=""><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div></div><div>Are you trying to identify names in a known problem space (e.g. a space defined by the limits of the techniques used) or to identify the problem space that you're in? For the latter, if you're going to generalise then perhaps you should also wave the specialisation of 'perfect' reproduction. So, even more generally, what you seem to describing is a special case of morphogenesis in which a 'copy' is made, e.g. lazy evaluation and cached computation can be thought of as slices in that process.<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></span><div> I think I'm trying to identify the problem space. "Morphogenesis" looks like an interesting term. Lazy evaluation and cached computation seem like opposites sides of the same coin. Do you mean that they are another form of "copying" that might be considered? I suppose that opens up new methods for performing the copy - eg, if the data-structure we're copying is a cached computation, instead of transmitting a description of the data structure, we might transmit the computation that produced it</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div>Yes, or the 'transmit' might be pure calculation. Really, the storing and sending of values is a special case (short-cut) of a process.</div><div><br></div><div>See SICP on streams:</div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0i4NJYP9gM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0i4NJYP9gM</a><br></div></div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>. Of course, then we still have the problem of how to accomplish *that*.</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Quite so, but that is something that can be localised too, if it was desirable. There's no mechanistic reason why it has to be the same across objects.</div><div><br></div><div>I vaguely recall that William Kent's "Data and Reality" has some of these ideas in the form of entity - object relations which might help you too.</div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div>Huw</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><span class=""><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>Colin</div></font></span></div></div></div>
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