Information Modeling and Relational Databases, 2nd Edition

9.1. Introduction

Although semantic approaches to information modeling appeared in the early seventies, no single approach has yet achieved universal adoption. By and large, the history of information systems modeling has been characterized by a plethora of techniques and notations, with occasional religious wars between proponents of different approaches. Each year, many new approaches would be proposed, leading to groans from academics who were charged with teaching the state of the art. This is referred to as the “yama” (Yet Another Modeling Approach!) or “nama” (Not Another Modeling Approach!) syndrome. Figure 9.1 pictures this as a mountain of modeling methods, piled on top of one another, which nicely ties in with the Japanese meaning ...