Re: Naming a concept

[John Kohl <sasjqk -at- SABLE -dot- UNX -dot- SAS -dot- COM>]

In article <3 -dot- 0 -dot- 32 -dot- 19980714122738 -dot- 006d5c24 -at- kansas -dot- stk -dot- com>, Sheila Marshall
<sheila -at- STK -dot- COM> writes:
|> Hi All:
|>
|> Need your help. We need a 1- or 2-word phrase that explains the following
|> concept. Hoping you can help me come up with candidates. Please reply off
|> list directly to me since I get the digest. Here's the deal:
|>
|> Working in 3-D. Users can customize a globe by specifying different details
|> that will appear on the globe. For instance, one instance of the globe may
|> contain highways and lakes. Another instance may contain glaciers and
|> forrests. Yet another may contain both or neither of these. It's totally
|> user defined. Each of these must be defined as separate and distinct
|> <WhateverWordWeDecideOn>.
|> Caveats are:
|>
[snip]
|>
|> * We can't call these views, because we already have a preponderance of
|> features that use the word view --including view points, view paths, viewer
|> position and viewer direction, view from above, view from North, etc. Way
|> too many....

On the contrary, I think you can and should call them views, because
what you are describing is exactly analogous to an SQL view (or DBMS
view), which extracts just the specified columns from a table in a
database.  I.e., it's a subset of all of the available data.  So I would
call them "globe views." Just be sure to always use the full noun phrase
"globe view" (rather than just "view") if you think there is any
possibility that your users won't be sure which type of "view" you are
referring to.

Regards,

John Kohl, editor
SAS Institute Inc.
Cary, NC