"Data and Reality" is a book by William Kent, published by North-Holland in 1978 and long since out of print, finally republished in 2000.  It is a great book!  It describes a lot of philosophical problems that apply to all data models, like the problem of identity, the purpose of an information system, naming, relationships and attributes.  Does anybody know any modern references on the same theme?

ISBN 1585009709

HowManyThingsIsIt

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The information in the link reminds me of material in a book on database design by one of my professors: NaphtaliRishe.  His model is called the ''semantic binary model.''
	* http://hpdrc.cs.fiu.edu/library/books/datades-book/

Taking his course drove home many things for me.. it was interesting to see where many things were similar to the material in AnalysisPatterns, but it also was interesting to jump back and forth between what I am seeing as ''object-think'' and ''database-think.''

In ''database-think,'' attributes of objects stand in relation to an identity external to the system, that they describe.  In ''object-think'' the attributes are of the object itself.  I'm very interested in where these worlds collide. For instance, does a medical information system really need a PatientClass?  

For fun, I've been mentally crossing out the names of classes in all the UML diagrams I encounter recently.  I look only at the interfaces. I really like this perspective for some reason.

-- MichaelFeathers

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CategoryBook