Re: S.O.D.A. database Query API - call for comments

on Saturday 28 April 2001 21:53, Lee Fesperman wrote:

> Object-oriented is a bunch of half-baked concepts with no theorectical
> foundation. There is no way to prove these concepts except
> empirically. Relational DBMSs, on the other hand, are built on
> fundamentally sound principles.

No, sorry, that's really, really not true. Just as the relational model has a sound basis in the mathematic of relational algebra, so object oriented design has a sound mathematical basis in category theory.

This is not to knock the relational model; it is my opinion, as it seems to be yours, that at the current state of the art the relational database is the most effective technology for storing many types of data in common use. And it is my opinion (whether or not it is yours) that no computing formalism without a sound mathematical basis can ever really be successful. But the strength of the relational database's position should be such that there's no need to knock other technologies.

-- 
simon_at_jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

                        ;; in faecibus sapiens rheum propagabit