Re: Genealogical evidence and data model

Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:

> On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:58:29 GMT, Haines Brown
> <brownh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> declaimed the following in
> soc.genealogy.computing:
>
>> Obviously I was confused by TMG's proprietary meanings. Data entry
>> seems to define a steady state, rather than event in the sense we
>> normally use the word. The term "role" refers to a functional
>> relation, but for it to generate an event it must be a causal
>> relation. GEDCOM includes functional relations, but not
>> event-generating causal relations.
>>
> 	Does a "bride" (role) "cause" a marriage (UFT: event; TMG: tag)?
> 	<G>
>
> 	Events/Tags do***ent that <something> took place,
> principles/witnesses (generic terms, roles may be specified for each)
> identify the individuals associated with that <something> and perhaps
> how they participated (<something> without principles is /not/ -- a
> marriage with no bride or groom is /not/).

OK, I understand. The event tag does not reference the cause of a change
in state but merely provides data associated with one of several kinds
of change in state. The "event" in TMG apparently remains tied to static
data. Is any kind of event allowed besides the obvious ones of birth,
marriage and death?

> 	But do you have the same meaning I associate with "flat file",
> or could you be meaning a "heap file".

No, I wasn't thinking of a heap. A heap is an array or tree structure
that orders people according to lineage. It seems very old fa****oned
(feudal), for there has been a major ****ft in culture in modern times,
starting with the Enlightenment notion of the autonomous individual, the
rational/optimal decision-maker, the social atom. That presumption
(arguably) is not realistic either. The percentage of women who
understandably decide to become mothers without the involvement of a
male suggests that the old lineage notion of society is on its last
legs.

However, we are in fact social beings, and so must be represented that
way. The practical problems being discussed in this thread appear to
suggest that lineages no longer accurately represent peoples' actual
social existence and are a feudal carry-over. My getting hung up on the
event (as causal process, not as data change)/data dichotomy was only
some abstract speculation about how better to represent society these
days. I was way out on a philosophical limb and apologize for indulging
myself at your expense.

Incidentally, what kind of data structure is used in TMG? Do all
genealogical applications use the same data structure?

>> If so, then how do we represent this unity of quite different things?
>> What comes immediately to mind is an object-oriented
>> database. "Objects" have both a state and a behavior. In terms of a
>> programming language, the former is called a "field" and the latter a
>> "method". We could combine an object-oriented language such as Java
>> with a way to store data, such as XML.
>>
> 	XML is a lousy way to store data -- it was optimized for data
> transfer between programs, but practically every program that has to
> modify XML data essentially has to read the entire file into some
> format, navigate that format to find the node to be changed, then
> write the data back out as XML...

My comment was only speculative, trying to define a philosophical
framework, not meant as a recommendation ;-). But as for the
practicality issue, I modify XML data every day without reading the file
into some other format. I create, navigate and modify XML files
directly. While my situation is hardly typical, is not the procedure to
which you object in effect what applications such as TMG actually do to
enable you to modify a GEDCOM file? I'm in general ignorant of
genealogical applications, but typically don't they im****t and ex****t
GEDCOM to and from a database designed to facilitate operations such as
removal and insertion, where GEDCOM is an open format for the exchange
of data rather than its manipulation?

-- 
 
       Haines Brown, KB1GRM