Re: Hierarchal vs Non-Hierarchal Interfaces to Biological Taxonomy

> Wanna know what's always bothered me about the way we describe
> hierarchies? We call the predecessor and successor parent and child and
> then throw in the autogenesis rule: "A child can have only one parent."
> There are very few children with only one parent... WTF do we use those
> terms?

I think hierarchy was originally was related to the power structure among preists. May be the emphasis on one parent came from there.

> Go for it all! Do real graphs!! Don't think, "I'll figure out hierarchies first, then retrofit whatever it might take to do graphs."

Do you consider graphs and networks to be the same or different? Received on Fri Dec 15 2006 - 23:35:28 CST