Domain

A domain is the top definitional level in RIDDL. We use the word domain in the sense of a knowledge domain; like an entire business, or some portion of it. It has nothing to do with Internet domain names. A domain is an arbitrary boundary around some subset of concepts in the universe. As with Domain Driven Design, RIDDL uses the concept of a domain to group together a set of related concepts.

Unlike other definitions in RIDDL, domains can contain other domains. Because of this, we can organize any large, complex knowledge domain or field of study, into a hierarchical ontology. For example, consider these nested domain definitions:

domain Automotive {
  domain Cars { ??? }
  domain Trucks { ??? }
  domain Repairs { ??? }
}

In this example, the Cars domain is nested inside the more general Automotive domain. We would say that Cars is a subdomain of Automotive. Additionally, there are two other subdomains of Automotive: Trucks and Repairs.