Dimensional informatics

Dimensional informatics (DI) is a novel area of computer science concerned with design of information spaces. Its approach is aimed at the creation queryable database-like hyperstructures, that address the fundamental null problem of traditional RDBMS design through reassessment of the relational paradigm.

DI systems adhere to the following principles:

• no information can be guaranteed to be known at the point of structural design. (datasets are incomplete).
• that real world data is irregular (datasets exist in an unstructured format).
• information structure must be amenable to change (the scaffolding must be flexible and non-static).

In order to facilitate these, DI systems demand a decomposition of data down to a level of binary relations, where interconnection between items is provided as a form of scaffolding, whether this be via links, adjacencies, lists or a mechanism for joins. Various data structures (e.g. The Semantic Web, ZigZag and semi-structured databases) use informational models that are isomorphic to this type of graph structure. Systems that accord to DI principles are deemed as complete, those that are deemed incomplete (the Web is an example of incomplete and hence incredibly difficult to process system).