On 05 Mar 2010, at 03:20 , Alejandro Garcia wrote: > On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Andrey Fedorov <[email protected]> wrote: > The picture you gave isn't a system, it's a directed graph.
Andrey Fedorov! You have failed to observe the bananas in System B! Directed graphs do not have bananas you dumbass! Don't you know anything? ;-) > I guess you're implying anything you imagine to be a "system" can be > represented as a graph - but what is a system? Processes in living creatures, social organizations or other phenomena that are operating synchronously in respect of one another are usually what we mean when we speak of systems. Which I wouldn't know today if it weren't for a philosophy major with his regulation-issue bong. Specifically: The picture Alejandro drew of System B used the CRT notation developed by Dr Goldratt. An arrow between two processes shows that the tail process must first complete before the head process can commence. A 'banana' operator between two arrows shows that all the tail processes so joined must complete before the head process can commence. Where there are multiple tail processes feeding into a head process without a banana operator joining them, the head entity will commence upon _any_ tail entity reaching completion. I have found it to be a powerful tool for modeling program execution. > Well it isn't a system in the same sense that a map isn't the terrain. > A blue print isn't a building > a paint isn't the object being painted. > > I think peoplo call those things a representation. Maybe I'm mistaken. You're not mistaken Alejandro. I understood exactly what you meant. > Also, you can define the "complexity" of a graph in any way you like. Until > you show that this definition is somehow representative of the real world, > you're just masturbating. > > > Ok for example in the real world the realization that is possible to know how > a system with several interactions will behave in a predictible way is the > basis of Systems Thinking and the Theory of Constraints. Both with huge > impact in systems from manufacturing to epidemic distribution. _IF_ you'd have to walk him through CRT's first to explain what you mean _AND_ he has already made up his mind that you don't know what you're talking about about _THEN_ he's unlikely to sit still for the two or three days it would take for him to realize his mistake. ;-) Are you actively busy with any research or applications of TOC & Systems Thinking to hardware design or programming Alejandro? Also of interest: Akyil - "How The Theory of Constraints Can Help Software Optimization" http://www.drdobbs.com/development-tools/218101302 Rippenhagen, Krishnaswamy - "Implementing the theory of constraints philosophy in highly reentrant systems" http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=293172.293397 (*cough* http://www.2shared.com/file/11859475/5abe015c/p993-rippenhagen.html) - antoine _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
