Changing variable / concept cardinality in a possible 3.4 Lifecycle version

[romaintailhurat]

It was agreed that the strict 0..1 relationship between variables and concepts should be lifted for a more flexible 0..n (#72). This change appears in Lifecycle 4 latest beta.

We nonetheless consider that this change should also be propagated in Lifecycle 3: indeed, it will allows non (very) early-adopters to use their 3.x flavor of Lifecycle with this feature (for some, the adoption of version 4 could be years away) - maybe through a version 3.4?

[DanSmith]

Perhaps an official recommendation can be given on a user attribute based extension to allow backwards compatibility in DDI 3.3/3.2.

This approach was also used for #38 (comment)

[romaintailhurat]

This approach works well as a "patch" but doesn't seem appropriate for a long term support.

We would really like to push the idea described in the original post, do you know what would be the official way to go in the Alliance?

[wlthomas]

This should be pursued through the Technical Committee. Basically what you are asking for is a split development or versioning line for DDI-Lifecycle. We did this once in continuing development of Codebook. It resulted in a complete separation of the 2 products. The reasons for making that move were much broader. Discussions on the cardinality change you noted plus other "small tweeks" in DDI-L 3.3 can be more broadly discussed but need to include functional options that do not require a split in the versioning lines. I will file this as a Technical Committee issue as it is something that arises on a regular basis over the years. We should make sure that the TC position is clearly defined and based on a full discussion of the broader issues. Wendy L. Thomas ISRDI [retired] email: ***@***.***

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On Mon, Mar 2, 2026, 08:45 Romain Tailhurat ***@***.***> wrote: *romaintailhurat* left a comment (ddialliance/ddimodel#77) <#77 (comment)> This approach works well as a "patch" but doesn't seem appropriate for a long term support. We would really like to push the idea described in the original post, do you know what would be the official way to go in the Alliance? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#77 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAJT47M73PGCU5GX7E2XOTL4OWM7XAVCNFSM6AAAAACWARXWD6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTSOBUHAZTGMBYG4> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>