[8600] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
'Cause I was sortin' and searchin...Sortin' and searchin' all night!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tansin A. Darcos & Company)
Thu Nov 25 08:54:10 1993
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1993 08:09:42 -0500 (EST)
From: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
Reply-To: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
To: Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com>,
>From: Paul Robinson <TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM>
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com>, writes:
> A MODEST PROPOSAL...
Be careful with titles like that. The last one was by the author of
Gulliver's Travels who suggested a solution to the famine in England.
Use fat Irish babies...
> I think the time is long overdue to sit down with some library
> science types and come up with a scheme for cataloguing software
> based on something similar to the Library of Congress catalogue
> schemes incorporating major application area, minor application
> areas, perhaps source language, etc into one tidy (as is practical)
> scheme (think: catalogue number or ISSN etc.)
I once got an idea like this. There is a serial number system for
companies to identify them, and many companies use this for identifying
customers and suppliers. It's known formally as the "Data Universal
Numbering System" or DUNS. No coincidence, I'm sure, that it is issued by
Dun and Bradstreet.
> This would be extremely useful in numerous contexts.
Any method of organizing things is better than none. If the system is
good, it can make things a whole lot easier.
The Patent and Trademark Office's Trademarks Division came up with a
coding system for graphic images. All the major elements of a graphic
image are coded with a specific six digit number like 00.00.00 where the
first two digits identify some 19 different classes, the second two digits
represent perhaps 30-50 subclasses in each class, and the last two digits
indicate a distinguishing type in that class.
For example, 01 is Celestial bodies, Natural Phenomena and Geographical Maps
01.01 is stars
01.01.01 is 3-Pointed stars (example: the Mercedes Benz logo)
01.01.02 is 4-Pointed stars (example: the U.S.Steel logo)
01.01.03 is 5-Pointed stars (example: the Chrysler Logo)
01.01.04 is 6-Pointed stars (Star of David)
Etc.
For programs, what would be needed is to sit down and define the hundreds
of things that programs do and divide them up into perhaps 20 major
classifications (and a program can be multiply coded.) This
classification, if broad enough, can include text files documents and data
bases.
I propose to create, using an idea similar either to the Trademarks or
Library of Congress Classification systems, the "Text and Data Abstract
and Runnable Code Organization System", which I got the idea from the Data
Universal Numbering System. I'll let you guess what the initials of the
system I am developing stand for. :)
So, we can have something like this:
01 Interpersonal Communications
02 Text and Document formatting
03 Numerical and Financial Analysis
etc.
45 Opinions and Polemics
01.01. Real-Time Communications between two or more people
01.01.01 "Chat" systems in text mode only
01.01.02 "Chat" systems supporting voice only
01.01.03 "Chat" systems supporting text and voice
01.01.04 "Chat" systems supporting video only
01.01.05 "Chat" systems supporting video and text
etc.
02.01. Single character triggered text formatters.
02.01.01. Based on keyword preceded by a single character, such as
runoff, where commands consist of .command
02.01.02. Based on command key such as escape, like Teco.
etc.
03.01. Spreadsheets
03.01.01. Providing no formulas or programmability
03.01.02. With formulas but without programmability
03.01.03. With programmability but without formulas
03.01.04. With Formulas and programmabilty
etc.
45.01 Life (human)
45.01.01. Termination before birth, including abortion and contraception.
45.01.02. Euthanasia, living wills, and denial of medical treatment
45.01.03. Murder
45.01.04. Suicide
And so on. Classifying human interests here is facetious; there are
probably hundreds of thousands of topics including specialized interests,
so mixing both of these (programs and concepts) is probably not good.
Another possibility is a bifurcated 8 digit number in the form nnnn.xxyy
where nnnn represents a major class of information, xx represents the
subclass, and yy represents the individual elements in that class. This
would give more room than the PTO format and would allow for expansion
into new ideas.
But it still requires subdividing the world's applications into various
classifications of features. And to do that requires getting lots of
information. In short, to do it properly probably requires soliciting
information via a mailing list. Care to put one up? :)
---
Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
Voted "Largest polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
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