Re: Terminology for composite attributes

From: Paul <paul_at_test.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:26:06 +0000
Message-ID: <4243225e$0$81025$ed2e19e4@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net>

dawn wrote:

>>I would take "arity". As in the arity of a tuple.

>
> OK, that works. I like that this term is used with functions and
> graphs too, but I don't like that "arity" sounds a bit pretentious or
> academic. I've never heard a software developer use the term arity,
> even when talking about number of parameters.

I think the etymology of the term is from the endings of "unary", "binary", "ternary" "denary" etc. Then an "it" was stuck in for some reason, maybe the word "ary" sounded too silly.

Paul. Received on Thu Mar 24 2005 - 14:26:06 CST