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Three words that mean almost the same thing — and they cost a sprint the moment someone mixes them up.
Taxonomy
A tree-shaped hierarchy. Every term has exactly one broader term. Quick to maintain, easy to teach — and broken on the day a term belongs in two branches.
Classification
A rule by which concrete things are sorted into predefined categories — usually a function of an attribute value. Classification is an operation on a model, not a model itself.
Ontology
A formal model of concepts, relations and rules — graph-shaped, not tree-shaped. Allows multiple inheritance, inverse relations, derived statements.
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