What's the vocabulary in Fathom?

Briefly

Every program has special vocabulary. This glossary connects our words to other vocabulary describing similar things.

our word

a.k.a.

meaning

case

record, data point

one entity, such as person or animal or state, about which data has been recorded.

collection

data set, file

a bunch of cases, taken together. Fathom will let you have several collections in a single document.

attribute

variable

cases have attributes. Each attribute has a separate value for each case.

continuous [attribute]

measurement [variable]

an attribute whose values are numeric (e.g., height, with values such as 62.5, 51.25, and 0.

categorical [attribute]

nominal [variable]

an attribute whose values are non-numeric (e.g., sex, with values male and female)

measure

aggregate statistic

a number that describes a group of cases, e.g., a mean; in Fathom, measures are like attributes that apply to the collection