On Thu, 22 May 2003 23:19:54 -0400, Joshua 'Schwa' Gargus wrote
> 
> I am curious: what do you envision as the non-textual representation
> of the number 2?  What about 324325435?
> 

a non-textual representation of a number two could be simply "two dots on a 
screen". and a representation of 324325435 can be a visual list of its digits 
(digits are in the "dot notation"), thus 324325435 can be represented non-
textually. you can admit that i replaced the notion of a textual digit with 
the notion of some "dotty" symbols which stand for each textual digit. but 
the point is that representing ANY number on a screen in non-textual form is 
indeed possible.

i think that we should adopt the opinion that every object can potentially 
have several representations (as several people in this list have already 
mentioned) and take this opinion as common knowledge which need not to be 
mentioned in the list. this is why i did not mention that objects can have 
several representations - it seems obvious to me.

> What does a collection of numbers look like?  What about a 
> collection of 324325435 numbers?
> 
> > --- cut ---
> > the squeak system answers: "no it wouldn't. you must make a textual 
> > representation of your object and ...".
> 
> Yes, that would be nice.  Maybe someday we'll figure out how to do 
> it well. If you have some concrete ideas about how to implement such 
> behavior, I'd love to hear them.
> 
> In the mean time, Squeak has the really nice feature that a lot of
> basic objects such as Points, Arrays, Numbers, Symbols, Strings, and
> probably more print themselves out in the same syntax as used to
> create them.  So, if you have an ordered collection in a workspace,
> you can highlight 'myOrderedCollection asArray', print it to get
> something like #(1 2 3 4 5 6.66), and cut'n'paste the already
> highlighted expression into your browser window.
> 

in some cases, it is crutial to perform operations with THE object and not 
with some "conversion" of it.

> Also, as others have mentioned, eToys and MorphicWrappers are worth
> looking into.  I'm not sure if Self has been mentioned in these
> threads, but it might be to your liking as well.
> 
> > so, are we working with objects or just manipulating text ?
> > 
> > giving objects names and them using those names is just one way of how to 
> > interconnect those objects. i want to work with objects not with their 
names, 
> > so why should i give names to objects anyway.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by 'work with objects not with their
> names'.  As others have noted elsewhere, not matter whether the 
> object appears as a textural name, a visual object, or a sound,
>  they're all just ways of interacting with an object, not the object 
> itself. Do you mean that you want to interact with visual representations
> of objects?

i had textual names on my mind. 

a position of an object on a screen is in fact its "name" in the context of 
the screen. i had not such "names" on my mind.

> 
> Joshua
> 
> > 
> > jz.
> >