Unification of concepts

This slide is presented at the "Trends in informationmodeling" seminar by Harm van der Lek. It gives an overview on jargon used in different modeling concepts.

ER, OO and UML considers the existence of Entities and their Attributes and Relations as connecting Entities. ORM reduces the number of types. ORM recognizes Entities as Objects. In ORM Facts resemble the Relations and Attributes.

FCO-IM takes this even a step further by stating 'Objects are in fact Facts'. By re-using Facts as part of another fact in the natural language a linguistic concept of nominalisation is introduced. This Fact re-use is graphically displayed as a fact surrounded by an ellipse. This representation is easier to understand but does not make it something else than a Fact, it remains to be a Fact.

Below is a small diagram which shows the reduction of terms used in different methods:

• The small note at the bottom adds to this that NIAM officially made a seperation where Objects were never Facts. ORM however mixes these. Facts can be Objects, yet don't have to be...

The purpose is simplification of concepts and it is not really a purpose in itself, but makes transformations easier and the methodology more transparent.