From: Pat Hayes ([email protected])
Date: 12/31/69
>Adam -- I had uniqueProperty and unambiguousProperty
>confused. But, for the example you gave "Person has SSN"
>it should be both. That is, hasSSN is both a uniqueProperty
>and an unambiguousProperty, since it is one-to-one (at least
>in the idealized world). I think this makes the example more
>interesting, in fact.
>
>The W3C Webont working group is looking for better names to
>use for these qualities of properties for its new language.
>What do people think of using names like oneToOneProperty,
>manyToOnePropoerty, oneToManyProperty, and manyToManyProperty.
Well, since you ask....
I think these names are lousy, just like the old names, and for a
similar reason: they assume a perspective in which one is
*describing* the properties rather than *using* them. I know this is
mathematically correct, but it isnt the way that people think
intuitively (unless they have several years of postgraduate
education, and often not even then.) Take for example
manyToOneProperty, such as 'father'. We don't say this in English by
talking *about* the property, we say it by *using* the property name:
we say things like 'People have only one father, but a father can
have any number of children.' Notice that 'father' here can be
understood as referring to your typical guy. That might be a kind of
abstract or archetypical Father, but that is a lot less weird than an
abstract property of the Platonic property of Fatherhood.
I would prefer to see a syntax in which people can say things like
'people have only one father' or 'fathers can have many children'
rather than talk ABOUT properties at all.
Pat
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