Re: c.d.theory glossary (repost)

mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org> writes:
> This glossary seeks to limit lengthy misunderstandings in
> comp.database.theory.
>
> People tend to assume that words mean what they are
> accustomed to, and take for granted that the other
> posters have about the same connotations.
> They don't always.
>
> Some words are particularly suspect: database, object, normalisation.
> Some just cause minor annoyances, the misunderstanding is cleared and
> the discussion goes on: domain, type, transaction.
>
> We don't know well-accepted, formal or comprehensive definitions
> for everything. If you do have a useful reference, please provide it.
>
> If an informal description is all we have, so be it.

i've done merged taxonomies & glossaries in various fields: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/index.html#glosnote i.e. security, payments, financial, privacy, standards, etc.

the issue isn't so much the intercategory relationships ... that could be contorted into a rdbms type schema ... although they frequently are many-to-many ... (say a word with multiple definitions and/or a common/same definition for different words). the somewhat more difficult is the arbritrary many-to-many intracategory relationships ... aka many-to-many relationships between words ... much more of an arbitrary mesh than any sort of structured row/column representation.

there was a story about an attempt to map a relatively straight-forward repository of metadata information (another case of arbitrary many-to-many mesh structures) into a rdbms paradigm ... and it got to over 900 tables (i think before they quit).

for a little humor ... quote from article today http://www.financetech.com/utils/www.wallstreetandtech.com/story/enews/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=PAYTB5SORIJ1OQSNDBCCKHQ?articleID=20300854 end of first paragraph for quote about data, information, & knowledge.

-- 
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/