[Bioperl-l] parent <-> subject etc

[Hilmar Lapp]

There are different names around for the triple (actually, a quadruple 
with the namespace) making up the relationship between two vertices:

	(subject,predicate,object)

or

	(child,relationship type,parent)

or

	(target,relationship type,source)

Some people have expressed in the past that some of these depictions 
are inferior to others for some reason or another, which quite frankly 
I don't agree with (e.g., subject/predicate/object may make a lot of 
sense for ontology terms, but not really for feature graphs). To me 
it's mostly a matter of taste, consistency, and documentation to make 
sure the directionality doesn't get confused (feature graphs, 
bioentry-bioentry relationships, and term-term relationships are all 
directed).

So, just to be sure I'm not confused already, if I define that the last 
(3rd) element in the aforementioned tuples has the smaller distance to 
the root along the 1st element's path to the root, then the order of 
elements above depicts the equivalent designations, right?

Once we all agree on this I'll document it in RelationshipI and the 
biosql schema.

	-hilmar
-- 
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Hilmar Lapp                            email: lapp at gnf.org
GNF, San Diego, Ca. 92121              phone: +1-858-812-1757
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