On 9/24/2015 10:16 AM, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> Extrapolating, I see a day where there will only be data for machines,
> no data for humans (or, relatively very, very little). When that occurs,
> essentially all data will be enumerations with defined semantics, all
> processing will be symbolic processing.
>
> Let's prepare for the future. When designing a data format identify
> those parts of your data which will be processed exclusively by
> machines; be sure to define them with enumerations (no string datatype
> here!)
>
> Comments?
Most processing is already symbolic processing. Every text character is
a symbol, in information theory terms anyway. I suppose you are in
essence advocating using finite sets of symbols rather than infinite
sets. Or you could say closed sets vs open sets.
