Re: Tag types - reorganizing all tags - task force

Mutual exclusivity is indeed part of the meaning of 'category'.

Because of that, 'category' is well suited for dividing up the
*characteristics* of packages: each characteristic belongs to one
and only one category.  Categories are mutually exclusive.

Note that (as I propose to use these words), packages do not
belong to categories.  Instead they have characteristics --
usually one characteristic from each category.

If you ask what packages *do* belong to, then I say "classes".
Each characteristic determines a class which contains exactly
those things that possesses that characteristic.

Just make sure that you don't attempt to define a characteristic
that belongs to all things that don't possess themselves, or
you'll run into the Russell paradox.  :)


On Wed, 2003-05-07 at 05:57, Matthew P. McGuire wrote:
> On Tue, May 06, 2003 at 11:54:54PM +0200, Erich Schubert wrote:
> > Hi,
> > "Categories" is bad imho, because it's not intuitive that a package has
> > many categories it does fit in.

I wrote:
> Instead of 'determination' and 'dimension', though, I suggest
> the terms 'characteristic' and 'category'.
>
> Thus, one of the categories of characterization is "ui", and
> some particular package's characteristic (in that category) is
> ui:console.

-- 
Thomas Hood <[email protected]>