Data Model Patterns: A Metadata Map

FOREWORD

Marcel Proust wrote that the real voyage of discovery lay not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes. In the information systems field, parts of the landscape change so rapidly that we can easily overlook the value that can be found in fresh perspectives. This is particularly true of systems specification, where advances have more often come from new ideas than from new technologies.

Systems specification is traditionally discussed in terms of its processes. Neophytes are taught the stages and tasks; debate centers on the merits of the different methodologies. Yet information systems professionals learned a long time ago that although process analysis might be the most obvious approach to understanding a business, it is ...