APPENDIX BGENERIC DATA MODELS
What has become known as ‘generic data modelling’ is, to all intents and purposes, data modelling using all the conventional procedures and techniques of data modelling, but where the current business rules are not allowed to affect the shape of the model itself. Instead the model is adapted to treat such business rules as part of the subject matter being modelled. This provides longer-term stability to the model and to any databases whose design is informed by the model.
The main difference between ‘traditional’ data models and generic data models is that the latter are characterised by entity types that are more abstract or generic than in a traditional data model. For example, in a model for a commercial business ...
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