flowers@tybalt.caltech.edu (Dave Flowers) (07/04/89)
On the topic of information storage : it is silly to say that the information of how an object is constructed must be stored in anything larger than the object itself, as its own structure contains all of the information necessary to construct another one. The only reason to store this information in a different form (other than for convenience) is to decrease the size necessary to store it. Other methods of storing include using methods similar to those used by the pkarc, pkpak, and pkzip family - data compression, and there is a large amount of redundancy in most objects. Dave flowers@tybalt.caltech.edu
honig@ics.uci.edu (David A. Honig) (07/07/89)
In article <Jul.3.19.55.45.1989.4527@athos.rutgers.edu> flowers@tybalt.caltech.edu (Dave Flowers) writes: > > On the topic of information storage : it is silly to say that the >information of how an object is constructed must be stored in anything larger >than the object itself, as its own structure contains all of the information >necessary to construct another one. The only reason to store this information >in a different form (other than for convenience) is to decrease the size >necessary to store it. Wrong! Information is represented in other forms because it is easier to perform certain operations in some encodings than in others. (Which operations you want to optimize depends upon your goals. E.g., Roman Numbering can be more compact than Radix Decimal for some numbers but arithmetic algorithms on R.N. are nasty.) Other methods of storing include using methods similar >to those used by the pkarc, pkpak, and pkzip family - data compression, and >there is a large amount of redundancy in most objects. > > Dave flowers@tybalt.caltech.edu There is great redundancy in everything of interest, true. But we'd still describe the world in terms other than the things themselves! David Honig honig@ics.uci.edu -- David A Honig [There is at least one other reason not to use the object itself--it may be perishable. Still, as David and others have said, most objects "of interest" will have highly compact representations. --JoSH]