::scr Touchy Feely?

[Ben]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2002 at 11:17:28AM +0100, Alaric B. Snell wrote:
> On Thursday 24 October 2002 18:33, Piers Cawley wrote:
> 
> > > If people stepped back from the differences and saw that it's all
> > > just sets then these things would logically converge more,
> > > eventually sharing their interfaces so you wouldn't need a different
> > > mental model for each of these things.
> >
> > Yes and no. Yes, be aware of them being 'just sets' but one should
> > also be aware of what a particular representation brings to the table,
> > and when it's appropriate to use each one.
> 
> Yes, of course. The angle I'm aiming at here is seperating the interface 
> ('Set') from the implementation ('SQL', 'memory', 'etched on the moon with a 
> laser')
> 
> > Hell, I can show you proof
> > that the individual counting numbers are just sets (I don't mean the
> > set of such numbers I mean the numbers themselves) built from nothing
> > more than the Zermelo Frankel axioms, but that doesn't have much in
> > the way of every day utility; it's more convenient to think of numbers
> > as being, well, numbers.
> 
> Well, obviously...

So, if at least a good chunk of the devil is in the detail, and the higher-level
abstractions are mostly more useful than the fact that they have some unifying
lower-level abstraction, what was all your previous vitriol about?

Ben