"Entity" vs. "entity information" dichotomy in a business model - is it really necessary in an "analysis model"?

Answer 1

I know what they mean.

Think, for example, of a LastLoginDate attribute. Users do not have that. Users, i.e. real people, have a name, an age, a date of birth, etc. But they don't have a last login date. The last login date is a piece of data that the system keeps about the user, but it is not a piece of data that users really have in the real world.

So, according to your book, LastLoginDate should belong to UserInformation rather than User. However, "real" data such as Name, Age, etc. would belong to User.

In other words, and from a more abstract perspective, classes such as User represent real-world entities, whereas classes such as UserInformation represent data collections about those entities.

I hope this helps.