LOL - I don't think there are any natural keys here. Traditional scientific names are amazingly flaky. I guess I shouldn't call them flaky; it's just that no one has ever figured out a way do deal with all the complexities of classification. The new LSID's might be more stable - but which LSID does one choose? But it's amazing how many "aliases" are attached to many taxonomic names; utterly bewildering.
On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 10:09 PM, Adrian Klaver <adrian.kla...@aklaver.com> wrote: > On 10/25/2015 09:10 PM, David Blomstrom wrote: > >> It's also interesting that some entities (e.g. EOL) are now using >> something called Life Science ID's (or something like that) in lieu of >> traditional scientific names. It sounds like a cool idea, but some of >> the LSID's seem awfully big and complex to me. I haven't figured out >> exactly what the codes mean. >> > > Aah, the natural key vs surrogate key conversation rears its head. > > > >> Then again, when I navigate to the Encyclopedia of Life's aardvark page >> @ http://www.eol.org/pages/327830/overview the code is actually >> amazingly short. >> >> > > -- > Adrian Klaver > adrian.kla...@aklaver.com > -- David Blomstrom Writer & Web Designer (Mac, M$ & Linux) www.geobop.org
