Genres, Categories and Editions

We have discussed Arenas as places where PersisTable data is stored. This physically separates sets of data; your local data is private to you while a shared Arena allows you to collaborate with colleagues.

Genres allow PersisTable information to be logically separated. A Genre represents a class or type of information. So Genres may be defined for process inputs and outputs, they may be set up for weekly sales results and monthly accounts. The choice of Genres is driven by the business requirements but careful definition of Genres to be used will assist the smooth operation of PersisTable driven EUC. It is relatively simple to modify Genres after the event, a Genre is automatically created if the Genre name has not previously been used.

Having split the PersisTable data into Genres, the data within a Genre can be further sub-divided into Categories. Again these relate to the specific business requirements; choosing a sensible set of categories (year, month, day might be the categories chosen for data collected on a daily basis) will make it simpler to find PersisTable data in the future. For those used to using databases, the Genre, Categories and PersisTable name act as the primary key to the data.

It is recommended that all data within a Genre is held within the same set of Categories as this makes it easier to automate processing of the data. Again Categories are automatically created if required. We can see the structure of Genres and Categories within the Persistence Viewer.

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