On Sep 28, 2007, at 2:14 PM, Pawel Bartuzi wrote:
> Bob W pisze:
>>
>> This is precisely the problem with any hierarchical organisation
>> imposed on non-hierarchical subject matter, and the reason why
>> they so
>> often fail. You also chose an example - genetic relationships - that
>> is well-suited to a tree structure, so it looks as though it would
>> work for all subject matter. Unfortunately for you it won't.
> [...]
>> I do try to be careful not to set these things up for subject matter
>> which is not really hierarchical.
>
> Well, I agree that a _strict_ hierarchical structure does not solve
> all
> the problems with people who should appear in different contexts -
> although even then I would prefer hierarchical structure over a
> flat one
> and just live with the limitations (after all, in a family tree the
> main
> problem are people marrying different members of the same family -
> there
> are not many persons like this).
Two (real) examples from my family:
a. My father's older brother married the sister of the husband of my
father's older sister.
b. My mother's brother (divorced) married the widow of my father's
younger brother.
In my wife's father's family, from a small town in Devon, there were
two prominent families and my wife's grandparents had many many
ancestors in common.
Some family trees look more like a bramble patch.
Stan
>
> Luckily, there is a cure for at least some of these limitations. I
> wrote
> about category references which are effectively a way for (some)
> databases to show one category (i.e. one person) in different
> contexts.
> They behave much like symlinks in Unix filesystems and so they solve
> precisely the problem I mentioned above.
>
> Pawel
>
>
>
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