On Sun, 10 Aug 2008, Moritz Lennert wrote:
May I suggest "table link" in place of the current "layer" then? So each
vector map can have multilpe "table links", and each "table" can have
it's own "key column".
This sounds reasonable to me too. It clearly describes what the feature
does.
Well, to be absolutely precise, you don't need linked attribute tables to
have multiple layers, so I'm not sure that reducing the layer concept to
table links is really 100% correct.
I think though, that connecting multiple layers to different tables is the
main application for layers? Are they much use for anything else? In which
case, calling them tables makes things clearer. Perhaps even table would
be enough - each vector map can be connected to multiple tables, each
vector map can have multiple tables, each vector map can have multiple
table links... is there a big difference in meaning between those
different sentences? I feel removing the word "link" improves the clarity
of the meaning without adding any additional ambiguity.
With regard to calling maps something different though, I think that would
be very confusing and not a good idea (especially if they were renamed to
layers). Map has IMHO a much clearer meaning than layer. There is the
issue of ambiguity with a printed map I suppose, but use of the word in
that context is kind of non-technical I feel. The use of the word map has
a clearly defined historical meaning in GRASS (and influences other words
too, e.g. a mapset = a collection of maps - should this be renamed a
layerset?) and I feel that it should stay.
Paul
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