[ardour-dev] terminology (range, interval, zone, region, segment)

[fons adriaensen]

On Mon, Oct 03, 2005 at 08:18:12AM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:

> Don't act upon my writings here until there is more consensus.

Same remark applies here.
 
> For what it's worth, I think that the word 'segment' (in American
> English) applies to any part of something that has been divided
> divided. This definition is essentially mathematical in nature but I
> think the key is that something needs to be really divided. For
> instance, when I have a wave file applied to a track and I break it
> into two separate pieces each of those pieces is a 'segment'. If I
> apply two wave files to a track, each file, or it's graphics in the
> track, is a 'segment'.

Not being an native English speaker, I'd agree with that. After all,
IIRC, you can 'segment' a thing - slice it up. But then every noun
can be verbed ;-). For me, segments also do not intersect and add
up to the whole, not a part of it. In my line of business (space
telecom) a system is usually divided into a 'ground segment' and
a 'space segment'.

> I think that 'typically' a region refers to a *continuous* part of a
> segment. It may be the whole segment or it may be part of it.
> Typically I think that a 'region' in this context is more abstract.
> It's an area of the track that is marked, for some reason of interest,
> but not necessarily physically divided into two parts. For instance a
> region might be a highlighted portion of a wave file, or possibly more
> than one wave file, in a track. When I drag my mouse across the
> screen, selecting portions of the audio, I'm creating a 'region', not
> a 'segment'.

Again agreed, and I'd add that (for me) a region is something that is
connected, i.e it only has one part. Same for 'range'.

Region, range, slice, section, part, segment, zone, ... any others
to consider ?

-- 
FA