Attributes

Attributes describe the cases in a collection. Database mavens often call attributes fields; many statisticians call them variables. (Fathom chooses “attribute” over “variable” to avoid confusion with the mathematical meaning of variable.) Other, less commonly used terms are property, descriptor, and quality.

Attributes are always of cases. In Fathom, just as you can’t have a case without a collection in which it can live, you can’t have an attribute without a collection whose cases you want to describe. Some examples of attributes include name (of an animal), population (of a city), speed (of a car), color (of a dress), and playingTime (of a song).