[self-interest] Re: Paper on Traits.

[Randy]

Yes, as I recall we were just looking for a word that would represent a bundle of characteristics.

I was't aware of or had forgotten the Star usage, and I didn't know about Adele's pedagogical method of avoiding a word until it the entity so named is introduced (though it's a clever idea).

There are just so many nouns out there -- something like "traits" is likely to be used in for many different things.

	--Randy


On Sep 27, 2011, at 12:04 AM, ungar at mac.com wrote:

> Good catch! It is possible I had seen it there, though I suspect if so, the reuse was unconscious.
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> On Sep 26, 2011, at 6:03 AM, jameskjxnoble wrote:
> 
>>  
>> --- In self-interest at yahoogroups.com, ungar at ... wrote:
>> >
>> > Small correction:
>> > 
>> > When I started using "traits", I don't think I knew about Adele's work.
>> > I used the term because it had to do with inheritance, and I was going with a biological metaphor.
>> > That's how I remember it. Maybe I'll ask Randy about it.
>> 
>> There's a 1984 paper on "Experience with Traits in the Xerox Star Workstation" -
>> I always assumed it came from there, via Parc... 
>> 
>> The Xerox Star (8010) is an integrated office workstation. Its software is written in an object-oriented style. Often, different applications will impose slightly different requirements on nominally similar objects which they use. Customization of object definitions for different applications is achieved by attaching modifiers called traits to pre-existing object defintions. This paper describes the approach and recounts our experience with traits.
>> 
>> TSE 1984, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5010276 
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