[SEEK-Taxon] Re: LC/TCS - How many schemas?

[Roger Hyam]

Hi everyone on the cc list!

I have thought long and hard about this and followed the debate with 
interest. There seem to be quite a few people who are very close to 
agreement on most things.

 From the point of view of an implementor I have a rather simple and 
possibly naive question:

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As regards nomenclature do we need to model everything (i.e. all 
possible nomenclatural constructs) in the schema?

If YES - When do we know we have finished designing it?

If NO -  What can we leave out or relegate to a simple notes field?
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There are 4 variables in any software project

1) Scope - what does the thing do.
2) Resources - how many people, machines etc.
3) Timescale - when do you want it by.
4) Quality - does it do what it says in the scope correctly.

In our case Resources are limited as not all experts can spend all their 
time on it. Timescale should be urgent as the things we are trying to 
record have a growing tendency to become extinct. Quality should always 
be 100%. The only thing we can manage here (as is usual in such 
projects) is Scope. Hence the above question.

If we could take a decision as to whether we will model everything then 
we can start working on how we know when we have finished or what we 
will leave out.

I hope you will excuse my rather blunt approach.

Roger

-- 

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  Roger Hyam
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  Biodiversity Informatics
  Independent Web Development
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  http://www.hyam.net  roger at hyam.net
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  T: +44 (0)1578 722782 M: +44 (0)7890 341847
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