[toast0]

> The call-by-meaning solution is to refer to functions (processes, etc) not by their name, but by what they do.

This seems like call by an even longer, more difficult to use name.

And it would seem to rely on a common language to describe functions/methods, which clearly we don't have or everyone would use the same names for things that do the same thing already.

[pakl]

Think about it. A “meaning” in this usage is definitely not a longer name.

[toast0]

From the doc you linked we have

   var clock = K . find (
   "(and
    (variableRepresents that thing)
    (typeBehaviorCapable-DeviceUsed thing
    (MeasuringFn Time-Quantity)))")

So if I want a clock instead of using the name system.timer, now I need to know the much longer name. Maaaybe you think I can reason about the parts of this name, but it's just a longer string with funny syntax. And it's only really useful if we all agree on the language of description, which if we had a common language of description, we wouldn't have the problem this is trying to address.

If you've got an example of a real system using this where it's actually better than searching docs, or learning what the language of today uses to measure the size in bytes and the size in codepoints and the size in glyphs, please link to that. But this feels like yet another thing where if everyone agrees about the ontology, everything would be easier, but there's no way everyone would agree, and there's not even an example ontology.

[TZubiri]

The different between a descriptor and a name is that there is one name, but infinite descriptors.