Houston - We Have a Problem

General Discussion
21

Arcane is an interesting word.

Dict Arcane known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; requiring secret or mysterious knowledge.

When I first applied for apprenticeship to the world of Knot Tyers, I was introduced to the words of the Guild - Bend, Bight, SPart, WorkingPart etc. (known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; requiring secret or mysterious knowledge.) I think we are struggling because the knotting world is already ‘Arcane’ - and worse - it is inconsistent. Ashley defines a Bight as the centre part of a rope or a curve or arc in the rope, while many will take the term to mean an open loop (ABOK #31) or a closed loop (ABOK #32). Layer on top of this the diversity of terminologies stemming from different trades and you have the near useless lexicon with which we struggle (and generally fail) to communicate today. These words have worked for centuries because in the day of the Apprentice, the fundamental means of transferring knowledge was demonstration. Words were to help recall, but the essence of knowledge transfer was done at the hand of the Master by visual example and demonstration.

Today, we do not sit at the Masters side as they demonstrate their knowledge. We sit on opposite sides of the globe and struggle to use the words in isolation. It should come as no surprise that these archaic words fail us, it should not be too much of a surprise to learn that these words MUST fail us - they were never designed to be the primary means of teaching (knowledge transfer) and they fail the task miserably.

BUT - today, we share more knowledge around the world in a second, than would have been shared in a lifetime when our knotting lexicon was created, and it is nearly all done in words. Special words, designed to transfer knowledge to others around the globe, without fear of ambiguity. These words are the language of HTML and XML and you may well choose to describe them as “extremely technical and arcane”. In a small way you would be right, but you would be much more correct to describe them as “precise and simple”. You could learn to write (and read) a simple html page in under an hour, in contrast, how long would it take you to learn the simplest of spoken languages with its book sized dictionary? The Internet has taught us that to exchange information unambiguously, we need fewer words, not more and a simple syntax that does not change meanings with the experience and perspective of the reader. The only downside of this is that it takes a lot of simple descriptions to describe something which is complex, but that is a tiny price to pay for a communication system which actually works.

Although HTML and XML are designed to be machine readable - i.e. a computer can ‘read’ them and create on the screen the information intended - XML also has the fundamental prerequisite that it be human readable (and of course, writeable) it might be tedious in its simplicity, but it is 100% accurate in its reproducibility and 0% ambiguous in its interpretation and that surely is what we need to start off with in our struggle to create a knotting lexicon for the 21st centuary.

What I'd love to be able to do is come up with a computer representation system that spans Celtic knot drafting (several of which already exist), turk's head drafting (ask the system for an AxB turk's head and get the grid, there's at least 1 or 2 of these, right?) as well as, say, AxB mystic knots or A over B flower knots or AxB bao knots or ... etc.

It’s possible that a representation system and a construction description methodology can be generated by the IGKT big brains, academics and theorists, but it also might be quicker and easier to do it on a case by case basis (plug-ins!): such as expandable rectangular turk’s heads, expandable cruciform turk’s heads, solid convex mat shapes, etc.

I think that the goals you expound for yourself are way, way ahead of the ‘simple’ knot description language I am seeking - on the scale of ‘walk before you run’ you are probably just boarding the Mars Express!! However, when we have a language that can reliably describe a simple knot, then we are only a step away from describing complex or compound knots. Then in turn we are only a step away from describing tiles or to use your phrase ‘plug-ins’ and that in turn is only a step away from being able to assemble the highly complex constructions you are used to working with every day.

Every great journey starts with the first step, and perhaps if we can build on Mel’s suggestions of basing our lexicon on XML, then maybe we have taken our first few faltering steps. To proceed, some of us are going to have to learn a little XML and create and define a handful of terms that will allow us to ‘write down a knot’. We will then have to apply this to a selected handful of benchmark knots to uncover ‘special’ cases, and develop methods to handle them. Key to this phase will be uncovering all the questions like - “How do I handle objects included in the knot like - eyes, spars etc.?” and “How do I annotate a helical coil?”. While some of us have our noses proverbially at the coal face, we may well need others (maybe Mel?) looking at the bigger picture in terms of how we go about integrating our little bit of XML with the mainstream and how we go about creating an XML parser that can render our descriptions into glorious 3D in our browsers, and maybe even the reverse - taking our sketches or pictures and turning them into XML for us?

It will be quite a journey, but I am confident it can be done and equally certain that we need it now we no longer have apprenticeships to Master Knotters. We will of course need a place to collect the ideas and developments together and as ever there is a wiki just waiting to oblige at http://knot-html.pbwiki.com/ Any comments, corrections ideas etc can be entered using the password igkt backed up with discussion through the forum. If you have already spotted some problems/hurdles then jot them down on the problems page at http://knot-html.pbwiki.com/Problems%20and%20Challenges someone is bound to have ideas how to approach them.

All Aboard for the Mars Express ??

22

Mel,

As ever, I find your analysis to be spot on. You focus precisely on the requirement of creating the knot description in “a standard, unambiguous manner”.

Your suggestion to use XML is probably key and I am reading through your link pages to get an understanding of the XML requirements, of course, any tips and help you can give me would be appreciated.

I think you will be particularly correct that art/craft folk will not warm to the pedanticity of writing a knot description in XML or any other form of ‘RISK’ language. Consequently I think we should not expect too much participation from the knotting membership, at least until the thing starts to bear fruit and we start to see the descriptions being rendered on screen.

I particularly relate to the need to archive knot information. Pictures and written descriptions are often insufficient to understand the whole structure of a knot and diagrams fail to define the dressed or working structure of a knot. Even Ashley ‘lost’ some knot definitions and I am sure that knots are being continuously lost as people die taking with them their unrecorded memories. A Knot-XML will mean we can record the structures of knots in their dressed structure and will give the additional advantage of allowing us to search for ‘signatures’ of various knot elements within knots - this has obvious forensic values and will allow knots to be studied as family groups sharing specific structural characteristics. I remain firmly convinced that the future development of any ‘Science of Knots’ depends firmly on the prior development of a knotting descriptive lexicon - a ‘language of the knots’.

I only hope the project attracts enough people to make a job of it.

23

I always do that. I take one or two baby steps then tend to head straight for the Mars Express. 8)

I’m just going to say one more word about XML and then shut up, though.

It’s true that one of the requirements of XML is that it must be human readable. This is to prevent it being co-opted by powers that may wish to corrupt it and try to take it into the proprietary realm (as has happened to HTML in the past and CSS in the present). But the primary purpose of XML is to describe data for interchange via computers. Tagging parts of a book “author’s dedication” “chapter head” or “table of contents” is for the benefit and understanding (data parsing and extraction) of computers, not humans directly.

To create a new XML schema, a human must first thoroughly understand the topic and then create a breakdown for computer input. Then they need to create the software that will decode it again for human understanding. In other words you need to know how to take your baby steps and also have a complete map to Mars and Alpha Centauri before starting to share or risk littering the landscape with droves of incomplete and possibly incompatible “one true description language”.

If your primary purpose is to transmit data from human to human then sitting down as the IGKT and agreeing on bight vs open loop, working end vs bitter end vs etc. and standardizing (and clearly, formally defining) would go further, more efficiently.

24

Wow,

Carol, am I glad you are here, You clearly know a lot about XML and its use and perhaps more importantly, its issues.

Please do not make this your last word on XML, I feel that if I can hang on your coat tails long enough, your knowledge and energy might just help take me where I need to get. There is much I need to learn, not least is the very point you make that in order to create a language to describe a knot, we must first learn how to describe it. Doubtless, with that process there will be mistakes and dead ends, but I do not see a new asteroid belt of dumped dictionaries of failed attempts. More likely, the language will acquire necessary components while discarding those which were inadequate - it will evolve into something usable, and if the cost of that is a few dead end remnants, then that is a small price to pay.

Yes, I understand that the purpose of XML is for it to be machine readable, and yes that would have to be seen as an ultimate goal, but along the way we have first to learn, as you carefully have pointed out, how to describe a knot, and in doing so we will uncover the means of unambiguously communicating knot movements/structures to one another.

As for your suggestion that we should consider sitting down as the IGKT and resolving the disparity of perceptions ranging over our existing terminology - well - first, if it could be made to happen, it would be a welcome breath of clarity to our field - BUT -

It would not resolve this problem, because the terms themselves do not, and cannot, describe the subtle angles and twists which differentiate one knot from a close neighbour, and because you would still be using unrestricted English, you would not be removing the opportunity for ambiguity from a description.

However, the really big BUT is - how long are you planning to live for? From what I have seen of the IGKT, the only good things to happen are this Forum and the KM - Nothing else Happens, or at least if it does the pace is measured in lifetimes. I genuinely think that without being naive about this, the only way to make changes happen is for members to do ‘it’, then hope that the IGKT PTB get round to ratifying it (but don’t hold your breath).

Besides, I could not sit down as the IGKT, because I am not a member yet - my application made nearly 8 months ago is still somewhere in the system and I have only ever had one reply from any of my enquiries re progress (like I said, progress measured in lifetimes and Stasis boxes haven’t been invented yet!).

25

Hi all. Forgive my ingnorance in this matter. I have found that a picture, or even an illustration can replace a thousand words. But if you combine the two in one place you have an indespensable resource of information to learn and to be taught.