in

The ORM Foundation

Get the facts!

Boleans - unary vs binary fact types

Last post Mon, Oct 27 2008 15:38 by Terry Halpin. 1 replies.
Page 1 of 1 (2 items)
Sort Posts: Previous Next
  • Sat, Oct 25 2008 3:14

    • rolemo
    • Top 25 Contributor
    • Joined on Sun, Oct 12 2008
    • Posts 38

    Boleans - unary vs binary fact types

     Hi Terry,

    would you kindly explain when should each of these options should be used? 

    Thanks 


  • Mon, Oct 27 2008 15:38 In reply to

    Re: Boleans - unary vs binary fact types

    Hi Rolemo

    Unaries (e.g. Person smokes) are often more natural than their equivalent binaries (e.g. Person has SmokingStatus), so I tend to use them a lot. However if you have a set of 2 or more mutually exclusive unaries (e.g. Person is male; Person is female) it is more efficient to use a single binary (e.g. Person is of Gender {'M', 'F'}).

    Currently NORMA treats unaries as open world, so if you want a closed world interpretation right now you might prefer the binary approach. In a later build of NORMA we plan to support both open (including open with negation) and closed word approaches for unaries.

    Cheers

    Terry

Page 1 of 1 (2 items)
© 2008-2024 ------- Terms of Service