FOSS Project Experience and On Visual Formalisms

For this post I will be reflecting upon my group's FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) project experience and briefly reflecting upon On Visual Formalisms

My Team: Boolean Bombers

• Cam Spell
• Logan Minnix
• Rob Hambrick
• Tyrieke Morton
• and Me!

In class we worked extremely effectively and efficiently, so the group could not have been paired up any better. Currently, we are looking at the following FOSS projects for use in CSCI 360: Tor, Celestia, and Galaxy. I have a personal preference for Galaxy as I have a significant biology background (having my Data Science concentration being in Molecular Biology). Additionally, Galaxy does not have as much of a learning curve as some other FOSS projects. I feel this way because Galaxy is largely written in Python (a language everyone starts with here at the College of Charleston) with some XML on the side. 

The On Visual Formalisms article reminded me of the daunting experience I had in my Introduction to Abstract Algebra class here at College of Charleston. It had a lot to do with set theory and the mapping of functions across different sets, which is not a hard topic in-and-of itself, but also having this as the introduction to formal proofs class is what makes me feel that this memory should be repressed. I did take away all the knowledge from that class and I am able to apply it to everything I know today. I had taken that class before ever thinking about taking a computer science course so whenever I see people using union operators or saying that functions map 1-1 onto R^N, I know what it means in a heartbeat. That being said, the set data structure was the easiest to understand whenever I stepped into Programming II (Java). I have digressed a bit here, but I feel that is almost the point of a blog sometimes. All in all, graphs, sets, and anything of the liking have become somewhat a strength of mine. I may not have ever heard of the term 'Hypergraphs' or 'Euler Circles', but it was pretty easy to pick up on what the author was trying to convey. To put it simply, applying set theory principles to graph theory. In graph theory, you can connect points and add direction to the connection if desired. That is pretty basic, though. With these Euler Circles you can actually relate three or more points at a time. In fact, you are relating sets (picture crazily-shaped venn diagrams). You can use operations to check the intersections, complements, etc. In hypergraphs, shapes, locations, distances, and sizes do not matter. If you go to the article I hyperlinked at the beginning, then you can see some of the abnormal looking graphs. Regardless, at the end of the day, a hypergraph represents everything you can do with just one set. Euler Circles however, are ways to relate entire sets through structure.

But why? Why do we care? Can this help us in software development? Well, the immediate example that comes to my mind is the diagramming consequences. You could represent a class, fully with superclasses (or interfaces) that are implemented and show a hierarchy while gaining meaning from the different types of graphs you are using. You could break down people involved in a company in this manner. There may be a person interface from which everyone inherits. Customers may be allowed to perform certain functions with the company (such as put in requests). Employees, however, could be broken up based upon their positions, gender, etc. Between all the people you could have attributes you would represent in a graph, such as isMarriedTo, livesWith, etc. These arrows would connect these different subclasses. Essentially, this feels like an alternative way to represent a class diagram, to put this in terms of UML. This most recent example is actually exemplified by the use of higraphs.

Music Listened to While Blogging: Kanye West