[QUANTITY]: gather requirements for quantity model

[DIDELON Pierre]

> On Tuesday 28 October 2003 13:29, Brian Thomas wrote:
> > On Tuesday 28 October 2003 03:34 pm, Patrick Dowler wrote:
> > > This is NOT a difficult problem as long as we refrain from redefining
> > > the words of the the english language willy-nilly, ie the word Quantity.
> > > It has a fairly well focused and accepted meaning in the world of computer
> > > science and we would be fools to stray from the actual meaning of the word.

I agree, and for my it has the meaning of a value or few values (array)
with minimum (but full) additional informations needed for interpretation and usage.
> >
> > 	Well, we arent just doing computer science though. 
> 
> At some low levels we are just doing CS; if we are not then we are
> totally screwed because we are mixing domain-specific knowlegde
> and concepts with basic fundamentals of math and comp sci. That
> path leads to disaster.
> 
> > As the very least, we are
> > 	talking about "physical" quantities like "flux", "wavelength" in
> > addition to CS quantities like "set" or "value" or "datacube".
> 
> The point is that in CS "set" and "datacube" are NOT quantities. They
> are containers. 

I agree. IMO Set and datacube a related to data structure without any additional
semantic or conceptual meaning...
A link with appropriate(s) QUANTITY(ies) and metadata would introduce the 
meaning and concept for data description.
> 
> As for the physical quantities "flux" and "wavelength", the SI site uses the 
> term "quantity in the general sense" for such things and it is confusing in 
> light of a perfectly good word in the english language for exactly what they 
> meant: phenomenon. Now, we could follow SI to the letter and have a class
> like QuantityInTheGeneralSense, but I think everyone would agree that 
> it is stupid to use a phrase when a word suffices.
> 
yes, try to use abstraction in the common way of Korzybski's General Semantics ;-)
with a first agreement on (english unfortunatly for me) words. 

Pierre