[Data-modeling] Chemist & other types that are professions - was Re: State of the commons (C-F)

[Tom Morris]

> Typically, I think professional types should be created only out of
> necessity.  If there is a lot of useful data around that profession
> (say, which movies you acted in), then it's a good thing to have.  If
> we add Chemists and Physicists, why not Nurses, Physicians and Plumbers?

I think part of the problem here is getting things aligned with the
mental model that people use -- or, conversely, getting all the people
of the world to change their mental model.  People tend to think Joe
is_a Plumber, not Joe has_a Plumber value for his Profession property.

Perhaps some thought needs to be put into how to map between the two
world views (in the UI?) so that the data purists can have the view
they want while at the same time allowing people to deal with things
in a way that's intuitive to them.  No, I don't have a ready solution
to the problem, but it doesn't seem likely to go away any time soon.

Tom