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NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 23:49:46 -0500
Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory
Subject: Re: c.d.theory glossary (repost)
Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 22:48:52 -0600
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Xref: newssvr20.news.prodigy.com comp.databases.theory:26583

mAsterdam <mAsterdam@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/