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> I consider what's machine-readable to mean [...] I hate to break it to you but the world has a very different and well agreed-upon definition of what "machin

> I consider what's machine-readable to mean [...] I hate to break it to you but the world has a very different and well agreed-upon definition of what "machine readable" means. You're going to get nowhere if you continue to argue that your definition is the correct one. That ship sailed long ago.

Ygg2 2y ago
Ok. But what is machine-readable, then? Is a picture of my passport machine-readable? Is a PDF machine-readable? How do you classify it? And what happens when ten years in the future once algorithms become more optimized? If an AI can read Shakespeare, and parse its paragraph for verbing a noun, is all human written stuff then machine-readable?
- iinnPP 2y ago
  The picture of your passport is machine-readable to any machine that can read it. That is not all machines. The significance of JSON, and the submission itself, seems to be in the ubiquity of JSON making it more machine-readable than other formats. You're being too strict with language and definitions.
  - Ygg2 2y ago
    > You're being too strict with language and definitions. Yeah, because the stricter the definition, the more useful it is. A "thing" has less informational value than a "yellow jacket" and that has less informational value than "white and yellow jacket, with Adidas logo".
    - Ukv 2y ago
      > Yeah, because the stricter the definition, the more useful it is Language is capable of expressing broad and narrow concepts. I don't think it can be said that either is inherently "more useful" - it just depends what you're intending to convey. Moreover I suspect iinnPP may not have meant you're being too strict as in specific, but strict as in rigid and inflexible - seemingly needing to separate everything with a sharp objective binary line rather than being able to consider the context (something that is "big" in one context may not be in another) and varying degrees. > A "thing" has less informational value than a "yellow jacket" and that has less informational value than "white and yellow jacket, with Adidas logo" If the word "flavoste" came to commonly refer to yellow jackets in general, and someone used that word to refer to a yellow jacket, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to call them wrong because the jacket doesn't have an Adidas logo if that's not what the word flavoste is used to mean. If you want a term to refer to things that are only readable by machines, such as to exclude JSON/CSV/XML/etc., something like "binary file" or "non-human-readable format" may be closer.
      - Ygg2 2y ago
        > but strict as in rigid and inflexible - seemingly needing to separate everything with a sharp objective binary line rather than being able to consider the context (something that is "big" in one context may not be in another) and varying degrees. Rigid in as I like things to be concise and precise as possible. The more rigid the definition, the fewer things a word can be. > Language is capable of expressing broad and narrow concepts. I don't think it can be said that either is inherently "more useful" - it just depends what you're intending to convey. Sure, language isn't a perfect conveyor of meaning, that's for sure. That said, I try to be concise and precise as possible, and vague, duplicated words just tick me off. Why say machine-readable if you can omit it (since everything appears to be machine-readable nowadays)? Just say something like THE text format on Linux or whatever.
        Ukv 2y ago
        > Rigid in as I like things to be concise and precise as possible. The more rigid the definition, the fewer things a word can be. I think there two, arguably three, concepts being conflated here: 1. Narrow vs broad - how much is included within the set being referred to 2. Smooth vs sharp - whether the distinction has a sudden cut-off or is more gradual 3. Ambiguous vs unambiguous - whether the term have multiple separate (possibly overlapping) definitions Or to illustrate: https://i.imgur.com/DQBWpTY.png https://i.imgur.com/DQBWpTY.png I don't see inherent advantage to a term being narrow, nor to being broad. The more useful definition on this axis is just the one that best matches what you intend to refer to, which may well be the larger set. Sometimes you want to talk about all bovine, sometimes you want to talk about only cows. For this blog post I'd claim the more useful definition of "machine-readable format" is the common one, because it was being used to refer to a set including JSON/XML/etc., opposed to your narrower definition which only includes formats that are additionally not readable by humans. A preference for sharper definitions could make more sense, depending on context - but I don't think your definition is really any sharper; whether something is "specialized" for instance still comes in varying degrees with no clear cut-off, with arguably every existant tool/program being "specialized" to some extent - in very much the same way as you argue against the common definition of machine-readable. Ambiguity is probably the property I'd say is the least desirable. By pushing to give the term an alternate definition that to my knowledge is not otherwise in common use and does not align with the literal meaning, I'd argue you are increasing ambiguity. I don't personally think the idea that languages like HTML are not machine-readable formats will catch on. > > Language is capable of expressing broad and narrow concepts. I don't think it can be said that either is inherently "more useful" - it just depends what you're intending to convey. > Sure, language isn't a perfect conveyor of meaning, that's for sure. The fact that language can convey both narrow and broad concepts is not a flaw; a language without the ability to refer to broad concepts would be distinctly less useful. > Just say something like THE text format on Linux or whatever. There are binary files in machine-readable formats. In fact, binary files are probably more in machine-readable formats than text files, on average.

Ygg2 2y ago

Ok. But what is machine-readable, then? Is a picture of my passport machine-readable? Is a PDF machine-readable? How do you classify it? And what happens when ten years in the future once algorithms become more optimized? If an AI can read Shakespeare, and parse its paragraph for verbing a noun, is all human written stuff then machine-readable?

iinnPP 2y ago
The picture of your passport is machine-readable to any machine that can read it. That is not all machines. The significance of JSON, and the submission itself, seems to be in the ubiquity of JSON making it more machine-readable than other formats. You're being too strict with language and definitions.
- Ygg2 2y ago
  > You're being too strict with language and definitions. Yeah, because the stricter the definition, the more useful it is. A "thing" has less informational value than a "yellow jacket" and that has less informational value than "white and yellow jacket, with Adidas logo".
  - Ukv 2y ago
    > Yeah, because the stricter the definition, the more useful it is Language is capable of expressing broad and narrow concepts. I don't think it can be said that either is inherently "more useful" - it just depends what you're intending to convey. Moreover I suspect iinnPP may not have meant you're being too strict as in specific, but strict as in rigid and inflexible - seemingly needing to separate everything with a sharp objective binary line rather than being able to consider the context (something that is "big" in one context may not be in another) and varying degrees. > A "thing" has less informational value than a "yellow jacket" and that has less informational value than "white and yellow jacket, with Adidas logo" If the word "flavoste" came to commonly refer to yellow jackets in general, and someone used that word to refer to a yellow jacket, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to call them wrong because the jacket doesn't have an Adidas logo if that's not what the word flavoste is used to mean. If you want a term to refer to things that are only readable by machines, such as to exclude JSON/CSV/XML/etc., something like "binary file" or "non-human-readable format" may be closer.
    - Ygg2 2y ago
      > but strict as in rigid and inflexible - seemingly needing to separate everything with a sharp objective binary line rather than being able to consider the context (something that is "big" in one context may not be in another) and varying degrees. Rigid in as I like things to be concise and precise as possible. The more rigid the definition, the fewer things a word can be. > Language is capable of expressing broad and narrow concepts. I don't think it can be said that either is inherently "more useful" - it just depends what you're intending to convey. Sure, language isn't a perfect conveyor of meaning, that's for sure. That said, I try to be concise and precise as possible, and vague, duplicated words just tick me off. Why say machine-readable if you can omit it (since everything appears to be machine-readable nowadays)? Just say something like THE text format on Linux or whatever.
      - Ukv 2y ago
        > Rigid in as I like things to be concise and precise as possible. The more rigid the definition, the fewer things a word can be. I think there two, arguably three, concepts being conflated here: 1. Narrow vs broad - how much is included within the set being referred to 2. Smooth vs sharp - whether the distinction has a sudden cut-off or is more gradual 3. Ambiguous vs unambiguous - whether the term have multiple separate (possibly overlapping) definitions Or to illustrate: https://i.imgur.com/DQBWpTY.png https://i.imgur.com/DQBWpTY.png I don't see inherent advantage to a term being narrow, nor to being broad. The more useful definition on this axis is just the one that best matches what you intend to refer to, which may well be the larger set. Sometimes you want to talk about all bovine, sometimes you want to talk about only cows. For this blog post I'd claim the more useful definition of "machine-readable format" is the common one, because it was being used to refer to a set including JSON/XML/etc., opposed to your narrower definition which only includes formats that are additionally not readable by humans. A preference for sharper definitions could make more sense, depending on context - but I don't think your definition is really any sharper; whether something is "specialized" for instance still comes in varying degrees with no clear cut-off, with arguably every existant tool/program being "specialized" to some extent - in very much the same way as you argue against the common definition of machine-readable. Ambiguity is probably the property I'd say is the least desirable. By pushing to give the term an alternate definition that to my knowledge is not otherwise in common use and does not align with the literal meaning, I'd argue you are increasing ambiguity. I don't personally think the idea that languages like HTML are not machine-readable formats will catch on. > > Language is capable of expressing broad and narrow concepts. I don't think it can be said that either is inherently "more useful" - it just depends what you're intending to convey. > Sure, language isn't a perfect conveyor of meaning, that's for sure. The fact that language can convey both narrow and broad concepts is not a flaw; a language without the ability to refer to broad concepts would be distinctly less useful. > Just say something like THE text format on Linux or whatever. There are binary files in machine-readable formats. In fact, binary files are probably more in machine-readable formats than text files, on average.