Rules of the Game (ROG)
This section answers the following questions:
1) Why does MindModel have standard noun types, verbs, and statement types?
2) Why can't I add my own noun types, verbs, and statement types?
3) If I can't add my own types, doesn't that mean that MindModel cannot store exactly what I want it to store?
Rules of the Game
At this point, it makes sense for us to step back from the details of using MindModel for a moment, and explain a few "rules of the game". By "rules of the game" we mean facts about the way that MindModel works that you need to know to use the software effectively.
In a game of poker, you need to know that three-of-a-kind beats a pair. A lot of things change from game to game, but if you don't know this rule, you're going to run into trouble sooner or later playing poker. MindModel is similar in that there a few "rules of the game" that you need to understand to take advantage of the software.
Standard Noun Types
One "rule of the game" in MindModel is that every noun must have a type. This rule makes it much easier to find information than if nouns of all types were lumped together.
When they first encounter MindModel, many new users request the ability to define their own noun types. What they don't realize is how much other work has to be done on their part in addition to naming these new types. For proof of this additional work, consider any of the generic databases, and how long it takes to learn how to use them effectively.
Standard Verbs
Another "rule of the game" is that you must use the standard MindModel verbs. There are over 600 standard MindModel verbs. You cannot add your own verbs to MindModel. We get a significant amount of negative feedback on this point, so we know that this design decision is not intuitive to most people at first.
We listen sincerely and with an open mind to all the feedback (both positive and negative) that we receive from our customers. In fact, at the time this documentation was written, there have been 609 upgrades to MindModel. Each of these new versions represents our listening to customer feedback, and introducing revisions to improve the software.
There are two main reasons why we've come to the conclusion that standard noun types and standard verbs are the way to go. If you'd like to discuss this issue in more detail, please feel free to contact us directly.
1) Ease of Use
Adding features that allow the user to add his or her own noun types and verbs would complicate the software, making it much more difficult to use.
Some of these complications are not immediately obvious. If the user can add his own noun types, he would also have to specify their type: alphanumeric (words), real number (with precision), integer, currency, boolean, etc.
Once the user defined his own noun types, he would also have to define all the relations to other noun types that make sense.
MindModel is preprogrammed, so that all this work has been done for you. We've considered the possible combinations of noun types and verbs, so MindModel narrows your choices to those that are meaningful.
For example, if you start a statement with "Bill Rogers reads", MindModel offers you the following list of object types: book, document, magazine, newspaper, etc. MindModel knows that these are all things that people read.
2) You Can Get What You Want in Other Ways
When people ask for custom noun types and verbs, what they're really asking for is flexibility. People need the ability to store any type of information they want, and name things however they want. MindModel gives you this flexibility.
Rather than allowing you to name your own noun types, MindModel allows you the freedom to name your own nouns.
A quick example will illustrate how.
Q. I want a custom noun type for cars. There's no category for cars. What can I do?
A. You can use the "product" noun type to store cars. You can name the cars any way you want. You can store information on hundreds of thousands of different cars. You can group all the cars together using the "product type" noun type. Then you can store information on hundreds of thousands of trucks, and group those together by a product type called "truck".
Using this two-level structure ("product" and "product type") you can store information on as many different things as you want, and still keep your data organized.
There are many other MindModel features and techniques that allow you a wide range of flexibility and expressiveness in your databases. Please refer to the "Feature Guide" for more information, or contact us directly if you have further questions.