From: Mark Rogaski <wendigo@ne-wendigo.jabberwock.org>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 14:44:52 +0800
To: ravage@ssz.com
Subject: Re: Orthogonal (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199710270042.SAA01737@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <199710270636.BAA11525@deathstar.jabberwock.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



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An entity claiming to be Jim Choate wrote:

: I can see the union 'build complicated things out of basic building blocks'
: and the use of Occam's Razor (I'm as lazy as any other programmer) but fail
: to see how this maps to anything relating to the concept of orthogonal.
: Which clearly doesn't have any inherent minimalist cast.
: 

Minimalism is merely a by-product of orthogonality.  A language is considered
orthogonal if builtin functions do not provide overlapping functionality.
So the term orthogonal probably refers to the fact that there is no
point of intersection in the functionality of the language (or system, as
the thread started out).

And I will not argue about vector spaces until I get bookshelves and actually
dig my Linear Algebra texts out of the boxes around my apartment.

Mark

- -- 
[] Mark Rogaski                   "That which does not kill me
[] wendigo@pobox.com                 only makes me stranger."

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