Labels are fundamental

["Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>]

Hi Folks,

[Definition] Label: a small piece of paper, fabric, plastic, or similar material attached to an object and giving information about it.

There are labels everywhere I look!

In XML we take an item of data and attach a label to it:

	<Author>Alfred North Whitehead</Author>

In the world of parsers and grammars we define language structures and give the language structure a label:

	retr: 'RETURN' INT '\n' ;

We attach labels to food packages, to clothing, to everything!

Labels seem to work best when in close proximity to the item being labeled. Thus, for example, an EXIT sign (label) is positioned immediately above the exit door.

Perhaps the reason data formats such as comma-separated-values (CSV) have less appeal/utility is that the labels (column headers) are remote from the data.

Labels are fundamental!

Comments?

/Roger