Subject: Glossary: temporal terms

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 09:12:27 -0500

I'm writing add my ideas on terminology for temporal databases for the
next version of the glossary.

The following two terms were used in a paper written by Laks
Lakshmanan and me titled "On querying temporal deductive databases"
which was presented at a workshop at Concordia Univ. and will be
published soon in the Springer-Verlag LNCS series.

\subsection{Temporal Data Type}

\entry{Definition} 
The user-defined temporal data type is a time representation specially
designed to meet the specific needs of the user.  For example, the
designers of a database used for class scheduling in a school might be
based on a "Year:Term:Day:Period" format.  Terms belonging to a
user-defined temporal data type get the same query language support as
do terms belonging to built-in temporal data types such as the DATE
data type.

\entry{Alternative Names}
User-defined temporal data type, auxiliary temporal data type.

\entry{Discussion}
The phrase "user-defined temporal data type" is uncomfortably similar
to the phrase "user-defined time", which is an orthogonal concept.
Nevertheless, it is an appropriate description for the intended usage
and we have used in our work.  If the notion of providing special
purpose temporal terms becomes more popular, I suspect the shorter
term "Temporal Data Type" will be sufficiently descriptive.

\subsection{Tick}

\entry{Definition}         
Same as definition of "chronon".

\entry{Alternative Names}   
Chronon, instant, atomic time unit, time unit.

\entry{Discussion}
Tick is concise, intuitive, and unpretentious.

Yours truly,
  Daniel Nonen
  email: [email-masked]