I've seen the term "Golden Braid" used in implementations and
discussions of CLOS. What does the term mean? My guess is the
interaction that objects belong to classes, which are objects, and
methods are objects etc.
Am I in the ballpark, or just wandering around the parking lot?
DDL
In article <··········@decius.ultra.net>, David Lowry <···@DBRC.com> wrote:
>I've seen the term "Golden Braid" used in implementations and
>discussions of CLOS. What does the term mean? My guess is the
>interaction that objects belong to classes, which are objects, and
>methods are objects etc.
>
>Am I in the ballpark, or just wandering around the parking lot?
I've never heard the term used specifically in discussion of CLOS, but I'm
not surprised it is. I think you're in the ballpark. The phrase
presumably is a reference to the book "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal
Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter -- an extremely enjoyable book that
discusses reflexive systems quite a bit.
If you haven't read it, I strongly recommend it. It also discusses AI,
recursion, counterpoint, and, of course, itself.
--
Barry Margolin
BBN Planet, Cambridge, MA
······@bbnplanet.com - Phone (617) 873-3126 - Fax (617) 873-5508
(BBN customers, please call (800) 632-7638 option 1 for support)
······@tools.bbnplanet.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
>
> In article <··········@decius.ultra.net>, David Lowry <···@DBRC.com> wrote:
> >I've seen the term "Golden Braid" used in implementations and
> >discussions of CLOS. What does the term mean? My guess is the
...
>
> I've never heard the term used specifically in discussion of CLOS, but I'm
> not surprised it is. I think you're in the ballpark. The phrase
> presumably is a reference to the book "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal
> Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter -- an extremely enjoyable book that
> discusses reflexive systems quite a bit.
>
The phrase is a reference to GEB. And it was used in implementations
of PCL to describe to "metaclass booting" process. I do not remember
the details, but basically it boils down to the question (or a similar
one):
what is the metaclass of 'standard-class'?
which of course can be 'recurred' on ad libitum :) So, when we are
building a CLOS metalevel hierarchy, when do we stop?
Cheers
--
Marco Antoniotti - Resistente Umano
===============================================================================
International Computer Science Institute | ·······@icsi.berkeley.edu
1947 Center STR, Suite 600 | tel. +1 (510) 643 9153
Berkeley, CA, 94704-1198, USA | +1 (510) 642 4274 x149