[tcs-lc] You don't need embedded names to do concepts

Roger Hyam roger at hyam.net
Thu Mar 10 14:01:34 PST 2005


Rich,

I think your take on a Nominal concept is a good one but I don't think 
it is the same as Jessie's and it may even break her model. As far as I 
understand it under Jessie's schema  you would always go back to the 
Original concept for details of the original publication. The nominal 
concept is just that - nominal - null - no links at all to other data.

The way I understand your nominal concept is that you want it to be just 
like a name object but with a concept wrapper round it and for it to be 
addressed in  the same GUID name space as concepts. Is that right? 
(Provided the GUIDs we use work with name space type things).

(By the way we go on about Jessie's schema but Jessie heads a team at 
Napier that includes Robert and other's so when I say Jessie I really 
mean all you guys and I guess everyone does).

Roger


Richard Pyle wrote:

>Jessie wrote:
>  
>
>>>give them GUIDs before we create concepts that we
>>>need GUIDs for - 2 GUID spaces to deal with,
>>>      
>>>
>
>Roger responded:
>  
>
>>This is only a disadvantage from the point of view of
>>a concept only world. People who want to refer to Names
>>want two GUIDs. It is an advantage from their perspective.
>>    
>>
>
>Don't count me among those people.  At the TDWG meeting at Christchurch, the
>one key take-home message of my presentation was a slide with the title "One
>GUID to Rule Them All" (quoted from the famous trilogy, "Lord of the
>GUIDs").  I do *not* advocate separate GUID spaces for names and concepts.
>In fact, I swing the opposite direction in my desire to have a single GUID
>space for all Name-Usage instances (including Identifications, etc.). See:
>http://www.tdwg.org/2004meet/EV/TDWG_2004_Papers_Pyle_1.zip
>
>In Taxonomer, I took the view that the GUID of the Name-usage instance that
>represents the Code-compliant original description of a name could serve as
>a surrogate GUID handle to the corresponding name object.  Ironically, this
>is the view (more or less) that I am now arguing against.  In Taxonomer, I
>always had this queasy feeling about a "dual-meaning" GUID -- i.e., that in
>some cases the GUID referred to the object represented in human-readable
>form as "Aus L.", and in other cases it referred to the object represented
>in human-readable form as "Aus L. SEC. L.".  This meant that software-level
>business rules were necessary to distinguish the two (actually, in a
>relational schema subtyping is straightforward, so I actually could impose
>restrictions at the schema level).
>
>However, once I realized that there could be an object (with its own GUID)
>that would be represented in human-readable form as "Aus L. SEC. [Nobody]"
>(i.e., the TCS Nominal Concept instance) my queasiness disappeared entirely.
>To me, this epitomizes "elegance" in solving a database conundrum.
>
>So obvious this is to me, that I was absolutely convinced that the only
>reason everyone else didn't see this as obvious had to do with some sort of
>communication failure on my part.  As should now be evident, my natural
>response to a perceived communication failure is to simply INCREASE THE
>VOLUME! ;-)
>
>At this point (with the benefit of a good night's rest), I now see that many
>of my ramblings were probably counterproductive.  Couple with my need to
>fulfill other obligations (yes, I do have a life outside of email), I now
>intend to dramatically tone down the rhetoric.  Don't misinterpret this as a
>reduction of my enthusiasm for this topic of conversation -- just a
>realization that quantity of email doesn't trump quality.
>
>:-)
>
>But before I sign off on this note, a couple points of clarification:
>
>Jessie wrote:
>  
>
>>>If we agree people sould use concepts even if they are (in my terms)
>>>nominal concepts we need to create the equivalent nominal concepts for
>>>every name and the original concepts for every name as well as the
>>>revised ones.
>>>      
>>>
>
>I agree completely with this statement, and I am convinced that a nominal
>concept in my terms is identical to a nominal concept in Jessie's terms
>(from a concept-definition perspective).  The only difference is that in my
>view, a Nominal concept instance will have embedded within it the
>nomenclaturally important non-concept name-object data.  If you strip that
>data, you have a TCS Nominal Concept as it currently stands in TCS.
>
>Roger wrote:
>  
>
>>Original concept circumscriptions are of no more importance than any
>>other circumscription - possibly generally of less importance - other
>>than the fact that they create the name and attach it to a type.
>>    
>>
>
>Exactly!  The nomenclatural acts contained in an original description are of
>fundamental importance to all subsequent applications of names, but the
>concept definition contained in an original description is no more special
>than any other concept definition (except that it cannot ever be regarded as
>a misidentified or misapplied name).
>
>Jessie wrote:
>  
>
>>>So I think it will put people off ever getting around to
>>>concepts for a long.... while....
>>>      
>>>
>
>Roger Responded:
>  
>
>>Here you have a point and it is the one thing that worries
>>me and I would like ideas as to how we encourage people to
>>use concepts but not mandate them to do it. I think that
>>is the challenge.
>>    
>>
>
>It worries me too, and my solution is to embed nomenclatural data within
>Nominal Concepts, thereby "forcing" all users who wish to attach data to a
>name-object directly, must do so by passing through a concept object (i.e.,
>the Nominal Concept instance for the name).
>
>  
>
>>At which point I will stop.
>>    
>>
>
>Ditto.
>
>Aloha,
>Rich
>
>
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>
>  
>

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