The ORM Foundation

For anyone who may be interested....  For most of my projects I use colour coding to visually distinguish a 'basic attribute' of an entity or fact within a model. Example 1 - Modifying an existing (production) model. Existing and unchanged: entity - black line, yellow fill; fact - black line work. Proposed Modified: entity - ...

For anyone who is interested I use the following symbology for my own benefit... I stick a 'T' inside a circle in the middle of a fact to indicate that its uniqueness is time dependent, that is, the value of a role can change over time, and a history of the change must be kept. If the role is mandatory then it is ...

I can't use either Visio for Enterprise Architect or NORMA at work, so I made an ORM template to use with standard Visio. It's not as fancy as the MS one but it allows me to generate the diagrams very quickly. It also has the advantage that I can represent additional concepts, such as whether or not a value can change over time, ...

Thanks, Orion, for your thoughts. The cat show problem does not exist per se - it is a piece of a model that is commercial-in-confidence, and so I changed the names of objects and facts.  In this case I chose cats, collars, and colours because it had a nice lilt to it. What you have done is to look at the model from a different perspective ...

Thanks, Matt and Ken. So for now I should be using Notes to describe such rules and constraints? Peter

The missing image:  

Hi, I'm hoping someone with more experience with ORM than me, and/or a better grasp of logic, can help with the following scenario (which is part of an ORM model with the Objects' and Facts' text changed - hence some of the Facts may appear a little strange). I have a Cat Show where people may show their cats.  Each Person must ...

Thanks Ken and Heath. I’ve spent quite a bit of time ruminating on what you said, Ken; and Heath’s response really helped. Thanks for the clarifications on terminology and the “aim” (or rather not) of ORM. If I understand both of you correctly, if I can’t model my Universe of Discourse with ORM then either I haven’t understood my “problem” ...

Thanks, Matt. Obviously you have a list of bugs and features that you have identified for fixing / implementing.  Is there such a list available for perusal, or do we just keep posting them in the forum, even if they may already have been identified elsewhere? Regards, Peter

Hi, When I select various types of constraints, eg subset constraint, the verbalizer describes it; BUT I get no verbalization on ring constraints. Even if I select a number of shapes, the ring constraint verbalization is missing. I'm using VS2008 Pro and March 2009 version of NORMA on Vista Home Premium. Thanks, Peter