terminological obscurity

[Arthur]

On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 00:38:28 +0200, "Martin v. Löwis"
<martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:

>> And the above sentences implies, and I could independently imagine, a
>> list might cohere around nothing more then the concept of existence.
>
>Correct. Of course, people typically collect things in a collection to
>have algorithms operate on the elements of a collection, so a collection
>of all things that exist would not be useful, and would be difficult to
>create.

Well I don't intend to be being quite *that* abstract.

In fact I worked a bit today not far from this domain, at least in my
interpretation of it.

An export routine for a 3d scene. A list is created dynaimcally of
anything in the scene that exists, as it is created   - lights,
cameras, geometric objects, textures, include file directions,
overrides of defaults,etc, and etc.  (I am exaggerating slightly to
make my point, but little)

A 3d scene is often conceived as a World,   The list in some sense
saves state, and about the only qualification for inclusion in the
list is existence. 

The list is iterated, and enough about the element determined to be
able to introspect the essential data needed to create relevant
information in a form that can be  parsed by an unrelated application,
to therby have the World recreated by that other application. 

Even on the output side, since the information needed is determined by
another application, and varies by the identity of the element -
little "homogeneity" is found.

Thinking about which led me to my conclusion.

Which like all my colclusion, remains open to be unconcluded.

Art