Re: Every time ..., was Re: General formula

[Tony Bartoletti <azb@xxxxxxxx>]

Ed,

I still think the central problem begged by the formula is
"What IS an attribute"?

To take Alan Lloyd's example, I certify a color table.  I can
(it would seem, arbitrarily) consider the entire array of values
as the table's "single attribute", or consider each color entry
(say RGB triplet) to be an attribute, or even take each R, G,
and B value separately as an attribute.

If the lifetime/lifespan of the table depends upon the lifetime
of each individual component, how do I know at what level of
granularity to assign attribute-hood, and thus apply the formula
correctly?

If you certify my name as "Tony", is that one attribute,
or is it four (each letter a separate attribute.)

As a first guess, I would say that if something can change
independently of another thing (and yes, are treated semantically
as separable values), then they can be separate attributes.

Otherwise, _in_the_context_ where two things are treated as
completely dependent (redundant) by definition, then they cannot
be treated as "two", as they are really "one".

___tony___

At 11:12 AM 6/2/99 -0700, Ed Gerck wrote:
>
>
>Alan Lloyd wrote:
>
>> Ed I  still do not know how anyone on this planet ...
>> can predict the life time of a cert.
>
>Every time you make a phone call, it gets through because
>somebody on this planet was able to predict its duration.
>And yet, how can anybody on this planet be able to
>predict the lifetime (Lebendauer) of that connection?
>
>The answer: By following very similar (though not
>equal) arguments as the ones I used. So, there is
>nothing magical about it.
>
>I suggest you read my original posting here and its
>inlined reference [1]. The full paper will hopefully
>make it clearer also by examples.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Ed Gerck
>______________________________________________________________________
>Dr.rer.nat. E. Gerck                                 egerck@mcg.org.br
>  ---  Meta-Certificate Group member -- http://www.mcg.org.br  ---
>
>
>
>

Tony Bartoletti                                             LL
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