Response to "Sign for the Carving Shape Mode", part 2

Response to "Sign for the Carving Shape Mode", part 2

Submitted by Charlotte Wile - November 10, 1999

Many thanks Jimmyle for your response to my October 5 posting.

I think your comments about the word "Carving" are thought provoking. Using a term that implies a reciprocal relationship does seem like a good idea. What term do you use for that Shape Mode? Do you like the term "Molding"? Or do you use another term? I avoid using the term "Shaping" because it is sometimes used for generic Shape Qualities. (See Hackney, Peggy. "SHAPE: What's Shaping Up?", paper presented at the 1993 Eurolab Conference in Berlin, Germany.)

Re: Your idea of using the sign shown in Ex. a) below to indicate "any Shape Mode." I think that might be a good idea if we were just beginning to develop the Shape Mode signs. However, I think that at this late date it might be too confusing to have Ex. a) mean "any Shape Mode," when in the past it has indicated "Shaping (Carving, Molding)."

Also, in my opinion it is not really necessary to change the present generic sign that indicates "any Shape Mode." (Ex. b) I feel that adding a wavy line to the indication is not needed for "syntactical consistency." It is true that many other generic indications in Motif Description include the sign for "any." However, there are also many indications that depict the concept of "any" without a wavy line, such as those in Ex. c-f ).

On the other hand, if an indication does contain the wavy line, the meaning of the wavy line should be "any." Hence my idea for changing the drawing of the Shaping (Carving, Molding) sign, as I discussed in my October 5 posting.