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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 05:41 PM EDT |
"Symbolic reference" has a specific meaning in computer science, and
it doesn't mean the same thing as a "cardinal number" in mathematics.
A symbol is a name (usually a string) and a "symbolic reference" is a
reference which has to be resolved somehow by searching for the symbol in some
kind of data structure (a hash table, a linear list, ...).
"Numeric reference" is not a term you would typically hear in computer
science, it just came into existence for this case to help distinguish things
like a "numeric index" from a "symbolic reference". And I
think that's where half of the problems came from, really.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- Reference versu pointer - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 06:44 PM EDT
- Nooooo - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 08:42 PM EDT
- Says you - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 12:18 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 05:45 PM EDT |
the issue here is variables (which can hold any number and you have to lookup
the variable to see what the address is) vs numbers (where you have the address
directly)[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 05:49 PM EDT |
Here in this courtroom we are not dealing with a
straight forward
symbolic reference versus numerical reference. Rather,
the issue is "a
symbolic reference is a name, other than the
numerical memory
location of the data it represents".
So to begin with, we have a "name", which precludes a
number. A name
is not a number, like a rose is not a bicycle.
Gringo - sent from my Android phone
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 06:23 PM EDT |
Having a symbol in a reference is not enough to make the reference symbolic.
Symbolic reference implies that the actual target is not yet known by anything
other than the label; the storage location is as yet unknown. All other
references, be they direct or indirect, refer to the storage location, just in
different ways. Thus, symbolic reference always implies a search.
The difference between cardinal and ordinal symbols has similarities to symbolic
and non-symbolic references, of course. I don't have a strong enough background
in mathematics to express the similarities in a rigorous manner, but if the
ordinality of the reference is not relevant, then the reference must be
symbolic. (The opposite is not true, because it is faster to look for a specific
symbol in an ordered set than in an unordered set.)[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 06:24 PM EDT |
In theory, numbers are symbols representing quantities. Twelve, XII, 12, x0C,
and 00001010 are all symbols representing the same quantity. In theory an ID
number is a number that serves as a symbol. However, the patent isn't
theoretical. It is practical. The numbers in question aren't ID numbers, they
are indices that appear as binary values in VM instructions.
An index is constrained by the size of the memory region to which it refers.
Symbols are not similarly constrained. Indices are dense. Symbols are sparse.
You can change a symbol by replacing all occurrences of it with a new
(previously unused) symbol. For instance, when the judge asked for the symbol
'fun' to be changed to 'y'. To change an index from 12 to (previously unused) 14
you not only have to change all occurrences of the index 12 to 14 you also have
to change the contents of the table it refers to by moving the contents of
location 12 to location 14 and you may also have to change the used/unused
status of each location.
So in practice a number being used as an index is not a symbolic reference.
IMHO, it is appalling for someone testifying as an expert "skilled in the
art" to say otherwise.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: PolR on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 06:29 PM EDT |
A symbolic reference is a name. It is not a number, cardinal, ordinal or
otherwise.
Besides in abstract set theory cardinal and ordinal numbers are not subsets of
each other. They are independent concepts and both act like numbers. When
considering finite numbers, cardinal and ordinal are in one-to-one
correspondence. And when you consider transfinite numbers (they are irrelevant
to computer programming) an infinity of ordinals correspond to each cardinal
numbers.
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| Authored by: sd_ip_tech on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 08:30 PM EDT |
The idea that Oracle is making these types of claims is beyond silliness. They
should be spanked like a bad child and told to stand in the corner until called.
Heck, I could even get metaphysical and say all so called numbers are themselves
a reference to an understanding of some quantity. They are not actually the
quantity itself. And then, of course, we need to negotiate perception for that.
It is madness.
---
sd_ip_tech[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, May 22 2012 @ 10:07 PM EDT |
A symbolic reference is when we refer to something by a string. For example,
in perl, it would look like $hash{'name'} = 123;
To get the value 123 out of that hash, Perl would look for the object with the
name 'name' get the memory address (a number) and look for the value at that
location, which is 123.
Ordinary references skip the name and just have the memory location or else
the memory location plus a numeric offset. With an array, that would be like
$array[7] = 234; To get to the 234, Perl takes the address of the array, then
adds 7 to that number, which gives it the location in memory where 234 is
stored.
It's not really like cardinal and ordinal numbers. It's just how we distinguish
between different processes for having computers look up information. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: xtifr on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 12:12 AM EDT |
It's not ordinal vs. cardinal, as just about everyone else has pointed out,
but a number can be a symbolic reference--but I'm 99.9% sure that's not
what's going on in this case.
What distinguishes a symbolic reference is
that the symbol (whether it be a string, a number, or something else) is
searched for in a table of symbols, rather than simply being used as an
index into a section of memory. The actual value of the symbol doesn't
matter--which is why it can be a number as well as a string--what matters is
that the symbol matches an entry in a symbol table somewhere. It is
the key in a set of key:value pairs.
With a numeric reference, whether
it be a memory location or an index into an array, the value of the number
matters. If you have five elements in your array, any number less than five is
a valid reference; any number beyond that range is not. With a symbolic
reference, if you have five elements (five key:value pairs), the reference could
be anything. The number 2012 could be a valid symbolic reference, while 2 might
not. It depends on what your (arbitrary) keys are. You don't care about the
value of the reference; you only care whether it matches a
key.
That said, while using a number as a symbolic reference is
technically possible, I don't think I've ever seen it done in practice.
It's a silly thing to do--if you're going to use symbols, they might as well be
meaningful. And if you're going to boil everything down to numbers, you might
as well make them sequential, and use an array, which is much faster
than a symbol lookup, or simply use raw memory addresses, which is fastest of
all.
---
Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for it makes them
soggy and hard to light. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: ThrPilgrim on Wednesday, May 23 2012 @ 11:41 AM EDT |
Part of the problem is that the Jury has been given two names and three things
to name.
The first, is the symbolic reference. This is a string that must be looked up
somewhere and converted into a memory address before it can be used.
The second is the "numeric reference", which is the address in memory
to go to in order to find the data item.
The third is the offset. Which is where I see some of the confusion. This is
because an offset is a number, but it has to be added to a base before it can be
used to access the item in memory. All though I think offsets where mentioned I
can't recall anyone defining them, and given the conflicting testimony from the
experts I can see the jury confusing offsets with symbolic references.
---
Beware of him who would deny you access to information for in his heart he
considers himself your master.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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