prototypical analysis and design

Albertina Lourenci lourenci at lsi.usp.br
Wed Nov 22 14:04:09 UTC 2000


Bharat Bedia wrote:

Dear Bharat:

While I can download everything from computer science  advanced
in the first world countries,  what is advanced in countries like
Brazil is not available because we are forced to write everything
in Portuguese. We work under very tight schedules.
Due to the interdisciplinary nature of my research it is not simple
to write a paper.
You can take a look at my home pages:
http://www.lsi.usp.br/~lourenci
I have an English summary of my ecodesign model.  But it is digitized
in the Macintosh (1988) and I must digitize it now in
Word for Windows to make it available at the home pages.
Anyhow the model of primary, secondary and tertiary waves
 is expected to model phenomena that present jumps. I do not know
enough computer science to know if their phenomena present
jumps.
The process of the natural languages present jumps, so one can
model a natural language with this model. It was developed by
Zeeman as an application of catastrophe theory.
Zeeman, E.C.: Primary and secondary waves in developmental
biology. Lectures on mathematics in the life sciences.
Catastrophe theory Selected papers 1972-1977Addison
Wesley Publishing Company Inc. 1977
I studied Biological Sciences, so it was easy for me to understand
papers centered on biology. Zeeman has not developed the
secondary waves.  The secondary waves in my model  is
an application of Hjelmslev's theory of language. It is
also an application of conceptual art.  Semiotics says any phenomenon
can be considered a  semiotic  phenomenon if you manage to
analyse it, as a function of a biplanar system, or a monoplanar
system or in function of any system in someway structured and
whose characteristics have not yet put in evidence or may be
even be not foreseenable. (E. Garroni, Projeto de SEmiotica)
The tertiary waves is an outcome of the previous waves.
Certainly the general theory of sign from Charles Peirce will
enable me to model it (Colapietro, V.: Is Peirce's theory of signs
truly general? Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society
A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy Spring 1987 Vol
XXIII N0.2

Peirce (1830-1914!!!!)  puts forward that everything has a
semiotic and an hermeneutic value.  The semiotic value is
independent of the ability of intelligent beings  to interpret it
(hermeneutic value). Hermeneutic means to be able to unfold
like a play or a conversation. Art is essentially hermeneutic.
Self is hermeneutic. The most hermeneutic art is music
and of course Self is musical.
But something very interesting about my ecodesign model
is that it unfolds like an autopoietic system. Maturana
and Varela define what is an autopoietic system/machine.
So according to their model when my sustainable cities
will be built, they will be an autopoietic or alive system!
All these concepts are being gathered under the so-called
hermeneutic computer science (see my paper in my
home pages: http://www.lsi.usp.br/~lourenci)

I hope there is enough material now to trigger a nice
discussion.
Cheers

Albertina


> Thanks for your reply, Albertina. Firstly my apologies if people find
> this thread off topic. If they can point me to an appropriate place
> then I'll glad take the conversation elsewhere.
>
> Secondly, all I have is my hands-on experience - I'm pretty low on
> the theoretical side. I think there are several issues but for now
> I'm only going to mention two: 1. patterns, and 2. the prototype
> paradigm
>
> 1. Patterns
> Patterns have been heavily discussed elsewhere. So the key points I
> want to raise are: a. they provide a way for "experience or the
> defining concepts" to be noted, b. they enrich the vocabulary of the
> pattern users and c. the patterns often work in unison.
> Patterns crop up everywhere, architecture, object oriented design,
> organisational structures (See Jim Coplien). Maybe even stories and
> Hollywood Movies if you consider Campbells' "The Hero with a Thousand
> Faces" and Vogler's "The Writer's Journey". My last job involved
> assessing tons of business plans for a major technology incubator and
> I know there are quite a few potential patterns for business models
> (B2B, ASP, RFP, etc)!!!! Patterns seems to be self standing. Perhaps
> someone has put in some thought about a pattern language for
> patterns!!!
>
> 2. Prototypes
> So there is a good chance that there are "patterns" for prototypical
> structures. I struggled with OO concepts for years which was
> confounded by using C++. The GOF Design Patterns book really helped
> me to understand OO by the medium of patterns. However, I still get
> frustrated by core OO concepts. I helped to design and implement an
> OO framework based on a generic opaque object. The interface of the
> object followed the Composite and Prototype design patterns. Parent
> an child nodes could communicate to each other (ie two way
> delegation). This was enough to quickly create different complex
> structures for example to mimic inheritance, polymorphism,
> encapsulaton (ie metaclasses). This has helped me understand the
> inner workings of OO much more. Then I discovered Self and prototype
> paradigm which I felt very comfortable with. I now feel pretty stupid
> since I realised I was using a prototypical approach to create
> traditional OO structures just like how I used C++ as a better C a
> long time ago! But then again this may be correct. Perhaps the
> problem context is such that the forces to be  balance require a
> class based solution. Therefore, inheritance, polymorphism &
> encapsulaton could be prototypical design patterns ???
>
> The GOF book (I think) advocates delegation over inheritance. I'm
> confused how to compare delegation to design patterns. Maybe the PHD
> is available online ?
> Is your own ecodesign model available on a web site somewhere, I'd
> love to read it ?
>
> cheers,
>
> Bharat
>
> --- In self-interest at egroups.com, Albertina Lourenci <lourenci at l...>
> wrote:
> > Subject: [self-interest] Prototypical analysis and design
> > From: "Bharat Bedia" <bharat at l...>
> > To: self-interest at egroups.com
> > Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 01:45:16 -0000
> >
> > Dear Bharat:
> >
> >                 I am also interested in showing the superiority of
> the
> > prototype paradigm  to express complex concepts.
> >
> > There are many people dealing with prototypes or delegation.
> > But no language has reached the level of development of the
> > Self language.
> >
> > At the right moment based on  Günther Kniesel's PHD thesis
> >
> > I am trying to figure out why he  argues that delegation is
> > far better than design patterns.
> > Since I am an architect and I was expected to unfold my PHD under
> > the advising of Christopher Alexander, the author of the A Pattern
> > Language, I would not deny the importance of this trend.
> >
> > My contact with Alexander began in 1990 and lasted until 1992.
> Exactly
> > at this time computer scientists showed interest  in mimicking in
> > computer science what he did in architecture.
> >
> > I have unfolded my own ecodesign model - or the domain dependent
> > model entitled THe model of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Waves
> > to plan and design sustainable cities. It is an appplication of
> > catastrophe theory, graph theory, semiotics, symmetry groups of
> > the plane and the dotless plane.  Its hermeneutic nature tunes
> > well with the hermeneutic  (really musical) Self nature.
> > I am trying to unfold a tutorial in Self and so the core of the
> tutorial
> >
> > necessarily must deal with your concerns, because it is very complex
> > to implement  concepts about sustainable cities.
> >
> >
> > Alexander agrees it is far more complex  and complete than his
> > A Pattern Language.
> >
> > What I object to A Pattern Language is that Chris had not developed
> > a correspondent geometric modeling (even less a computational
> modeling).
> >
> > Likewise the Gang of the Four has not focused on developing language
> > constructs that would correspond straightforwardly  to the design
> > patterns.
> >
> > I am reading an interesting paper from Jan Bosch that shows how to
> do
> > this. Unfortunately he does not use delegation.
> >
> > Kniesel in his thesis wants to show the superiority of delegation
> but
> > I am still reading through his thesis and the papers I gathered and
> I
> > have no conclusion.
> >
> > But I would be happy if the researchers joined us in this  important
> > discussion.
> >
> >
> > I've read through the book "Prototype-Based Programming: Concepts,
> > Languags and Applications" which provided lots of useful background
> > material.
> >
> > Like OO analysis & design, I'm interested in analysis, modelling &
> > application design techniques for the object-based prototypical
> > paradigm. The implementation would be done in an object-based
> > language like Self.
> >
> > Can anyone point to any online research material or book reference ?
> >
> > I am exhausted now and recovering...But I hope we can trigger off
> > a discussion and I promise to give the references gladly.
> >
> > Best wishes
> >
> > Albertina
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > Bharat
> > --------------------------------------Bharat@
> >
> > --
> > .----------------------------------------------------------.
> > | Albertina Lourenci                                       |
> > | PhD  in Architecture and Urbanism                        |
> > | post-doctorate researcher                                |
> > | Laboratory of Integrated Systems University of Sao Paulo |
> > | Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, 158 Travessa 3      |
> > | CEP: 05508-900                                           |
> > | Sao Paulo Sao Paulo State Brazil                         |
> > | Voice: +55 011 818 5254                                  |
> > | Fax: +55 11 211 4574                                     |
> > .----------------------------------------------------------.

--
.----------------------------------------------------------.
| Albertina Lourenci                                       |
| PhD  in Architecture and Urbanism                        |
| post-doctorate researcher                                |
| Laboratory of Integrated Systems University of Sao Paulo |
| Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, 158 Travessa 3      |
| CEP: 05508-900                                           |
| Sao Paulo Sao Paulo State Brazil                         |
| Voice: +55 011 818 5254                                  |
| Fax: +55 11 211 4574                                     |
.----------------------------------------------------------.


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