Re: OO and relation "impedance mismatch"

From: robert <gnuoytr_at_rcn.com>
Date: 2 Oct 2004 17:20:50 -0700
Message-ID: <da3c2186.0410021620.294785b7_at_posting.google.com>


jcelko212_at_earthlink.net (--CELKO--) wrote in message news:<18c7b3c2.0410020756.35b93881_at_posting.google.com>...
> >> I am wondering if "relational" people at this forum feel the same
> thing, that it is hard to use a OO language when you are using a
> relational database? <<
>
> Many years ago, the INCITS H2 Database Standards Committee(nee ANSI
> X3H2 Database Standards Committee) had a meeting in Rapid City, South
> Dakota. We had Mount Rushmore and Bjarne Stroustrup as special
> attractions. Mr. Stroustrup did his slide show about Bell Labs
> inventing C++ and OO programming for us and we got to ask questions.
>
> One of the questions was how we should put OO stuff into SQL. His
> answer was that Bells Labs, with all their talent, had tried four
> different approaches to this problem and come the conclusion that you
> should not do it. OO was great for programming but deadly for data.
>
> I have watched people try to force OO models into SQL and it falls
> apart in about a year. Every typo becomes a new attribute or class,
> queries that would have been so easy in a relational model are now
> multi-table monster outer joins, redundancy grows at an exponential
> rates, constraints are virtually impossible to write so you can kiss
> data integrity goodbye, etc.

until an OO folk invents something as powerful (i don't think that's too strong a word) as referential integrity, object integrity to coin the term, the OO folk will continue down the path trod by the COBOL folk: application control of data integrity. i've yet to meet an OO twink (ditto) who realizes how truly retrograde OO is. in the world where lots of data roams.

and by the bye, along with the other silliness like XML data, comes the truly old wine: "workflow". the OO/Event Driven folk have invented a new word for "procedural programming". fine new lipstick, but that same old pig.

not that i'm bitter or anything.

BobTheDataBaseBoy Received on Sun Oct 03 2004 - 02:20:50 CEST

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