Re: [lojban] Re: two concepts I haven't found any helpful translation

[Invent Yourself <xod@thestonecutters.net>]

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003, Robin Lee Powell wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 27, 2003 at 10:53:53AM -0500, Invent Yourself wrote:
> > On Sun, 26 Oct 2003, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> >
> > > On Sun, Oct 26, 2003 at 11:09:48PM +0100, Llu'is Batlle i
> > > Rossell wrote:
> > > > They are 'hardware' and 'software'. Any clue?
> > >
> > > >From http://www.lojban.org/cgi-bin/dict.pl
> > >
> > > samru'e, samselpla and sampla for "program".  Apparently I
> > > didn't do glosses for software.
> > >
> > > For hardware, what's wrong with minji?
> > >
> > > mutmi'i, IMO, is ass.



On the other hand, it occurred to me that software is still software even
if it's not being run. Is that true of pruce?  The English gloss is not
precise (as to the noun-like or verb-like nature of x1), but the fact that
pu'u is in nu is a clue that lopruce is event-like. But an argument in the
other direction is that the definition could easily have included that x1
is an event, and it doesn't.

If a piece of software is never ever executed, what is "process" about it?

Either way, it's a metaphor. Strictly, software is nothing but software.
But we can liken it to a process (when it's excuted), a contraption built
using code as a building material, or as an algorithm or schema, or as a
responsive intelligence, or as a work of literature, or as a mathematical
entity like a theorem, or as a single number, or as a human experience.

The machine analogy bears the most fruit from the perspective of social
relations, usage, and intent. Pieces of software are like machines in
terms of their design by specialists, their mass production and marketing
by corporations, their function as capital and also as consumer goods.
Mechanical logic is historically being replaced by digital logic.



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values and ideals which set this Nation apart.
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