Data Model Patterns

Foreword

Entity modelling, or data modelling as it is sometimes called, may be used as a passive way of modelling exactly what exists—providing little interpretation or insight as to its meaning. There is a more active form of modelling, however, commonly found in mathematics and science, which has a model predict something that was not previously known or provide for some circumstance that does not yet exist. Such models are invariably much simpler, easier to understand, and yet deal with more situations than mirror-image models.

For example, the Ptolemy model of planetary motion was complex but accurately described the observable motion of the planets, the moon, and the sun around the earth. The model from Copernicus was simpler but even more ...