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Old 10-07-2010
Why Software is Abstract, by PolR
Why Software Is Abstract
by PolR




Following the ruling of the Supreme Court in Bilski, the USPTO asked, in substance, how to tell an abstract idea from an application of the idea. In this article I propose an answer to the question of what makes software abstract. It is a follow up to the previous article, Physical Aspects of Mathematics.

The logic is to look at why a mathematical calculation is abstract and then see if the same logic applies to software. It happens that it does. It is possible to show that software is abstract with references to the underlying mathematical aspects. This is not, however, the topic for this article. The argument is presented without any assumption as to whether or not software is mathematics. I work from the observation that a mathematical calculation solving a mathematical problem is abstract. Then I look at what makes it abstract. Then I observe that the exact same logic is applicable to all software whether or not the law sees it as an algorithm as defined by Benson. This is not surprising. Software is mathematics and this makes it abstract, but I don't use or rely on this fact in making the arguments in this article.



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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

dbix::class::sqlmaker

DBIx::Class::SQLMaker(3pm)				User Contributed Perl Documentation				DBIx::Class::SQLMaker(3pm)

NAME

       DBIx::Class::SQLMaker - An SQL::Abstract-based SQL maker class

DESCRIPTION

       This module is a subclass of SQL::Abstract and includes a number of DBIC-specific workarounds, not yet suitable for inclusion into the
       SQL::Abstract core. It also provides all (and more than) the functionality of SQL::Abstract::Limit, see
       DBIx::Class::SQLMaker::LimitDialects for more info.

       Currently the enhancements to SQL::Abstract are:

       o   Support for "JOIN" statements (via extended "table/from" support)

       o   Support of functions in "SELECT" lists

       o   "GROUP BY"/"HAVING" support (via extensions to the order_by parameter)

       o   Support of "...FOR UPDATE" type of select statement modifiers

       o   The "-ident" operator

       o   The "-value" operator

OPERATORS

   -ident
       Used to explicitly specify an SQL identifier. Takes a plain string as value which is then invariably treated as a column name (and is being
       properly quoted if quoting has been requested). Most useful for comparison of two columns:

	   my %where = (
	       priority => { '<', 2 },
	       requestor => { -ident => 'submitter' }
	   );

       which results in:

	   $stmt = 'WHERE "priority" < ? AND "requestor" = "submitter"';
	   @bind = ('2');

   -value
       The -value operator signals that the argument to the right is a raw bind value.	It will be passed straight to DBI, without invoking any of
       the SQL::Abstract condition-parsing logic. This allows you to, for example, pass an array as a column value for databases that support
       array datatypes, e.g.:

	   my %where = (
	       array => { -value => [1, 2, 3] }
	   );

       which results in:

	   $stmt = 'WHERE array = ?';
	   @bind = ([1, 2, 3]);

AUTHORS

       See "CONTRIBUTORS" in DBIx::Class.

LICENSE

       You may distribute this code under the same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.14.2							    2011-11-29						DBIx::Class::SQLMaker(3pm)