ONT Re: Data Models, Ontologies, Logic
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Data Models, Ontologies, Logic
JF = Jim Farrugia
MW = Matthew West
MW: Data Model, a structure of types and relations against
which instances of the types and relations can be stored.
Definitions of the types and relations are in natural language.
Some constraints are defined, usually in terms of the cardinality
of relationships.
I am not comfortable with the term "data model",
and I would tend to shy away from it due to all
of the confusion that we already have about the
polysemantic word "model", but maybe I will get
used to it over time.
There are all sorts of names for "what you do to define
a dataset before you get down to putting data into it",
and if that is roughly what you are talking about, then
I think I know what you mean. I used to use a variety
of different names for this, depending on the software
of the moment, but they all seemed to cluster about
words like "scheme", "specification", "structure".
Is that anything like what you mean by "data model"?
I will stop to see if we are on the same page here,
and then we can back up or progress from there.
Jon Awbrey
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