http://www.drmaciver.com/2009/06/axioms-definitions-and-agreement/ Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:56:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.drmaciver.com/2009/06/axioms-definitions-and-agreement/#comment-948 Basu Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:05:18 +0000 http://www.drmaciver.com/?p=1169#comment-948 This reminds me of an article (and video) http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages-strike-back.html where he 'defines' dynamic languages by naming a bunch of them, he meant it as a joke (that there's no agreed upon definition of a dynamic language) but I think it's a good example of how people classify things. Even if we don't have a formal agreed upon definition, we can group things together by similar characteristics and conversely (as you pointed out) exclude things that don't share those characteristics. Of course, there's still the question of which characteristics are sufficient for inclusion and that can be just as controversial as a working definition. This reminds me of an article (and video) http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/05/dynamic-languages-strike-back.html where he ‘defines’ dynamic languages by naming a bunch of them, he meant it as a joke (that there’s no agreed upon definition of a dynamic language) but I think it’s a good example of how people classify things. Even if we don’t have a formal agreed upon definition, we can group things together by similar characteristics and conversely (as you pointed out) exclude things that don’t share those characteristics. Of course, there’s still the question of which characteristics are sufficient for inclusion and that can be just as controversial as a working definition.

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