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> 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 t
by 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> I don't see inherent advantage to a term being narrow, nor to being broad. A narrow definition will appear less frequently and thus probably have higher informational content. It's why a word "a" has little informational content, but a very specific word like "vestibular" has more informational content. The more you can apply your word to anything, the less information does it carries. > There are binary files in machine-readable formats. Sure, but text format, means a textual format, i.e. uses text (or more precisely, can be rendered as bytes). Or maybe plaintext.
- Ukv 2y ago> A narrow definition will appear less frequently and thus probably have higher informational content. It's why a word "a" has little informational content, but a very specific word like "vestibular" has more informational content. I agree that "vestibular" refers to a more particular concept. I don't see how it follows that "vestibular" is a "more useful" word in the sense that implies we should be redefining other words to be likewise narrow in definition. If anything I'm pretty sure most would consider "a" to be the "more useful" word due to how applicable it is. But, really, language needs words for both narrow and broad concepts. > Sure, but text format, means a textual format, i.e. uses text [...] Or maybe plaintext. To my understanding, you suggested using the term "THE text format on Linux" as a replacement for "machine-readable" (as it is currently used). My objection was that those concepts are not the same and, in fact, binary files tend to be machine-readable moreso than text files. I'm confused how stating that text is textual addresses that. > or more precisely, can be rendered as bytes Many things (including, say, an 8-bit image) can be rendered as bytes. Would probably say it's instead about whether the data is in a UTF-8/ASCII/etc. encoding.
- Ygg2 2y ago> I agree that "vestibular" refers to a more particular concept. Not just that. A more surprising (i.e. less likely) result carries more information. In the informational theory sense. A word with broad scope will be more used, thus be more frequent in text, and thus, carry less information. > To my understanding, you suggested using the term "THE text format on Linux" as a replacement for "machine-readable" (as it is currently used). My objection was that those concepts are not the same and, in fact, binary files tend to be machine-readable moreso than text files. Ok, you have a point there. But I don't think the author ever compared binary machine only readable formats, either. All the machine-readable formats that he looked into admin were human-readable too. > Many things (including, say, an 8-bit image) can be rendered as bytes. Sorry, I meant to say UTF8/UTF16/ASCII etc. Probably was messing around with UTF8 -> bytes conversion around that time.