🚀 go-pugleaf

In <EACHUS.91Jun18164709@largo.mitre.org> eachus@largo.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes:

>     Incidently, all the fancy software in the world with multiple
>keys, multiple views, etc. won't address that need.  What make the
>Dewey system (or Library of Congress) useful is that once I have it in
>my head, I know where books on say Cryptography are to be found, and I
>can find related books that I didn't know about.  A keyword probe will
>miss closely related--but different--subjects.

I agree that something like this is needed, but how is it going to be
organised?  There's a big difference between books and computer programs.
If I go into a library and walk up to the shelf marked "Mathematical Logic"
(marked in Dewey Decimal or whatever), then the books I find there will
be about the various aspects of "Mathematical Logic" and just that.
However, if I walk into a computer store and walk up to the shelf marked
"Spreadsheets" I'll also find programs that double up as wordprocessors,
databases, desktop publishers, comms programs, ... in addition to being
a spreadsheet.

So if the "Compy Decimal" system (or whatever) was used, we'd find such
programs under lots of different numbers and sooner or later some librarian
is going to forget to enter a program under all necessary headings, or
a programmer is not going to tell the librarian all the headings and
we are back to square one.  Similarly, using identifiers for programs like
"spreadsheet,database,wordprocessor,unix,xwindows:123.8" aren't going
to be much better, and we'll get back to the keyword search problem
eventually.

Some central control would be needed (as with any library system) and that
would be a good idea (and I agree with this), but with "creeping featurism"
being the favourite passtime of upgrades these days, it's only going to
get worse.  When a book is published, further editions don't stray much
from the original topic - but program users are always screaming for more
features over and above what a program was initially intended for, meaning
extra identifiers for every new version of a program.  Distributed database
technology is not the answer, just the means.  Better information is the
answer.

Maybe it's time we retrained programmers to write programs to perform
a single task, not control the world!  :-)

We'll come up with something eventually, but I don't think it will fit
into the library/archive framework we are used to: there's so much
more information in computing than humans are used to.  It will have
to be something new.  Any ideas?

Cheers,

Rhys.

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||  Rhys Weatherley   |  The University of Queensland,  ||
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