Relations Domains Quote by Anonymous
““Any domain knowledge is not a plain set of relations, it is whole hierarchy of relations. And not surprisingly only a minority of relations are leaves of this hierarchy, typically a majority of relations adopt other relations as domains. We have a representation: relation → table; domain → attribute. But a table can not adopt another table as an attribute! Therefore, we can not represent our domain knowledge in terms of tables. There simply is no room for relations between relations. Though, we can represent SOME relations””
About This Quote
Source Technical paper: Knowledge Representation Survey, 2020
Complex data structures cannot be fully captured by simple tables due to hierarchical relations.
In simple terms: Tables can’t model all relationships.
Key Takeaway
Use richer data models.
Themes
data modeling
hierarchy
limitations
Mood
analytical
critical
Type
technical
informative
When to use this quote
- database design
- AI knowledge bases
- enterprise data architecture
Key Concepts
ontology
graph databases
semantic networks
Questions to Reflect On
- What data needs exceed relational models?
- How can you simplify hierarchical data?
A Different Perspective
Graph databases may be harder to implement.
