Re: database systems and organizational intelligence

"Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> wrote in message news:c97doc$i8i$1_at_news.netins.net...
> Iin what (type of) language would you like to see data constraints encoded
> and constraint handling logic written so that these same "services"
> (components) can be used for both data entry (when needed for tossing up a
> UI or validating entered or sent values) and data storage (if the DBMS
> didn't lock you in)?

I think the language is less relevant than the location of constraint handling logic.
I think of contraints listed in the DB and enforced by the DBMS as acting to enforce a contract
between the writers and the readers of data in the DBMS. Constraints enforced at data entry
time are different.

Having said that, I think that "WHAT rather than HOW" applies here. Good constraint languages will
let the user (of the language) specify WHAT the constraint is, rather than HOW to enforce it.

> Lament -- I'm teaching Java in the Fall and the last time I taught a
college
> language course was over 20 years ago --COBOL, Fortran, and BASIC. Where
we
> were once able to teach a language and in short order a student could take
> in data, validate it, use it, modify it, store it, and retrieve it (i.e.
> data processing), we might now need to teach Java, SQL, XML (including
many
> xml-based "languages" such as ant), jsp, html (along with taglibs etc) to
> write one little example of taking in data, storing it and retrieving it
> again the way a production system might work. (and then to get the
software
> run-time environment set up...!!)

Interesting topic!

What's the lament? Are you teaching the language? Are you teaching how to program? or are you teaching how to work with production type systems? Or are you teaching all three in the same course?

I've never taught in college, but I have taught in industry. I've never taught people COBOL, Fortran and Basic but I have taught programmers how to use SQL in conjunction with those languages.

A little over 20 years ago, I was exposed to a little language called PASCAL. I really liked it, compared to COBOL, Fortran, and BASIC, and a lot of others. Maybe it's time for someone to do for the current state of the art what PASCAL did for 3GL.

PASCAL, you will recall, had as its prime mission the support of programming courses. Students were not learning, PASCAL, per se, They were learning how to program. PASCAL minimized (somewhat) the distractions to the learner due to the quirks and historical accidents in the existing 3GL alternatives. At the same time, a person who learned how to program well, in a learning evirnment, was well prepared, in theory, for whatever 3GL they had to deal with in progressional life.

So, what are programmers doing today? More importantly, what are they going to be doing 5 or 10 years down the road? Received on Fri May 28 2004 - 16:11:47 CEST