Resolve
RDF Terms

Component

Something that, while having an independent existence, is inherently part of or designed to be part of a larger entity, such as a system or network.

A component may be designed or intended as part of a whole without actually being so; e.g., a car steering wheel that is not installed in any car.

Many things are in a trivial sense a part of a larger thing, but are not considered components because they are not inherently part of that larger thing. For example, while a book may be part of a library (a collection of books), it is not inherently so, and thus is not a component. A playing card, on the other hand, could be considered a component in (member of) a deck of cards. This may be use case-dependent; e.g., car parts might be modeled as components in an automobile manufacturing context but not in a retail auto parts store.

Physical substances, such as ingredients in a cake batter, do not meet the independent existence criterion, so are not components.

This class is not disjoint with gist:Composite, because a component may itself break down into smaller components.

This is an abstract class that is not directly instantiated. Users will define subclasses that are meaningful to their domain of interest.