Metadata?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

James Barrow reports: <<Typical use case format.  The bosses liked  
it, but wanted a table in addition to everything else above.  In this  
table they want columns showing the Actors, Business Rules and  
Metadata.  I'm guessing that this Metadata is going to be the  
encoding a user does to the data before it's entered into the DB.>>

Don't guess. "Metadata" means "information about the data", and  
without pinning down the nature of the information, you could end up  
spending hours documenting the wrong information. Your understanding  
of this term probably differs from mine and that of your bosses.

<<I just can't figure out what to call the table.  Criteria?>>

Once you know what they mean by "metadata", the correct word will be  
easier to pick. And don't get hung up on finding a single-word  
solution: sometimes "the best word" is actually a short phrase, such  
as "Description of the data" or "Validity checks for controlling data  
input".


----------------------------------------------------
-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
--------------------------------------------------
Coming soon:  _Effective onscreen editing_ (http://www.geoff-hart.com/ 
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