Re: domain questionnaire

From: JRStern <JRStern_at_gte.net>
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 02:27:08 GMT
Message-ID: <3a986c13.27371638_at_news.gte.net>


On Sat, 24 Feb 2001 23:40:33 GMT, "Scot A. Becker" <scotb_at_inconcept.com> wrote:
>I'm not sure I follow you. A fact is merely an assertion that an object has
>some property or that one or more objects participate in a relationship. If
>the assertion is true, then the fact exists.

That's moving a little too fast. A fact is an assertion ... that is true. Well, OK, I say the water is too hot, you say it is too cold. We agree the thermometer says 30c. We have different models of the same physical facts.

I concede that most application domains mostly avoid such problems, they are mostly fine with the objective, agreed-upon facts. This is mostly meant to illustrate that the basic theory of objective facts, is not necessarily sufficient, or simple. In philosophical terms it would be called structuralism or realism, and neither would get you very far in most philosophy classes given over the past, oh, twenty-five hundred years or so.

>From a pragmatic standpoint, I have yet to see an ORM schema not produce a
>"fully normalized" (up to 5NF, and probably some of the latter forms as
>well... again, I don't know them all) schema. I deal with business system
>models and meta-models though, so I guess your mileage may vary.

You know people who implement their systems as 5nf?

Well, ... if people find that ORM is a useful toolkit for producing useful schemas, then it has a place in the world, alongside hammers and saws. However, the theoretical insights available from hammers and saws are not necessarily exhaustive of the possible.

Joshua Stern
JRStern_at_gte.net Received on Sun Feb 25 2001 - 03:27:08 CET

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