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Posted by dorayme on 04/27/07 21:56
In article <TmkYh.44722$YY7.25263@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi>,
"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> wrote:
> A table is logically a list of lists
A table certainly contains lists. It may even contain a list of
lists. But, I am having trouble believing it is (logically) a
list of lists. I am not sure. But I cannot rule it out as there
may be a way of so arguing your statement.
A list of lists in the sense in which we have become familiar on
this newsgroup would perhaps be a nested list. A nested list
further details or shows associations of particular list items in
the nest.
In a simple table, I can almost persuade myself:
Deborah 28
Fred 39
Alice 84
looks logically to display the same content and relationships as
Deborah
28
Fred
39
Alice
84
But you only have to add another column in addition to age, say,
place of birth, to experience difficulties in this.
So, I would say that a table is something basic in the scheme of
things or at least it is not easily reduced in thought to the
notion of lists (though you are quite right to think they are an
essential part of the idea). A table, like no other thing,
displays relationships. It can have or have implied, captions and
headings and these play a crucial role.
But, as I say, it is possible someone might argue your statement
in a persuasive way that at the moment eludes me.
> with the
> same number of items and with some meaningful relationship across the inner
> lists so that the n'th items in inner lists have some connection with each
> other. For example, a simple table of results in a game, with names and
> points scored by each player, is a two-item list where the n'th item of the
> first list and the n'th item in the second list are connected so that the
> former contains the name of a player and the latter the result of that
> player.
--
dorayme
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