Re: Entities and fields

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From: Richard Knapp (richfk_at_attglobal.net)
Date: Fri Jul 19 2002 - 00:55:57 CEST


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From: "Richard Knapp" <richfk_at_attglobal.net>
To: "cavexml_at_cartography.ch" <cavexml_at_cartography.ch>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 18:55:57 -0400 (EDT)
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Subject: Re: Entities and fields
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On Thu, 18 Jul 2002 09:26:52 -0600, P A Hill & E V Goodall wrote:

> He has choosen Field and then drawn an analogy to 'columns'. I'd say this is
> a reasonable way to explain by example. Using a DB term he would have called it
> a column straight out :-)

True.

> Do you have a better word than "field" we could use to stay away from
> attribute or element, both specifically defined in XML?

My point is not to point out a correct or incorrect way of defining
things. However, if the document is to be totally implementation
neutral, then neither XML (done) or database (not done) terms should
be used.

As far as what I would choose, that depends on the design language
being used. Since this is much like OOA/D (non-language but somewhat
implementation specific), terms like "data member" or "property" are
pretty neutral. That would also infer the larger items are objects or
classes. Classes might be too much OOA/D but objects might work.
FWIW...

> Now he could explicitly say that a field may map to an element or
> an attribute of another element and not just leave it to be surmised by the reader.

What ever is said,it should be extremely specific so there is very
little chance of confusion. Something that is implict to one person
may mean something totally different - and probably wrong - to
someone else. Since understanding and cooperation is the point of
doing all this, everything needs to be explicit. But YMMV


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