definitions

[ialarmedalien]

I'm somewhat confused about the difference between these terms:

      populated_from:
        range: SlotReference
        description: Source slot name
      sources:
        range: SlotReference
        multivalued: true
      derived_from:
        range: SlotReference
        multivalued: true
        description: Source slots that are used to derive this slot. This can be computed from the expr,
          if the expr is declarative.

From the code, it looks like sources is just populated_from but with multiple values allowed. Is that correct?

derived_from isn't used anywhere in the codebase yet, so I'm not sure what it's supposed to do.

It would make the codebase and the linkml-map DSL easier to understand if the same words were used for similar concepts -- e.g. source for a single source slot, sources for multiple slots. Does there even need to be a distinction at the level of the specification, or can the code automatically Do The Right Thing, whether there are multiple or just a single source from which the field value should be derived?

[amc-corey-cox]

I think you make some good points here. Personally, I also don't like overloading the term source or sources. We use that terminology throughout the code and I think also making slots in the spec named that gets confusing. I think derived_from: is valuable for denoting that the source slot is not used as-is but I would like to drop sources and just allow populated_from: be single or multi-valued. Is there some reason we need a separate definition when it's multi-valued?

[ialarmedalien]

I like the idea of just using populated_from and ensuring that it works for both single and multiple values.

[ialarmedalien]

Do we need others to weigh in on this or could it just be implemented?

Presumably there would need to be a deprecation process for the derived_from and sources schema tags.