Re: The wisdom of the object mentors (Was: Searching OO Associations with RDBMS Persistence Models)

From: Keith H Duggar <duggar_at_alum.mit.edu>
Date: 2 Jun 2006 03:03:35 -0700
Message-ID: <1149242615.012883.113990_at_f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>


Robert Martin wrote:
> Bob Badour wrote :
> > And this is why I say that what you write is such
> > ignorant tripe.
>
> Ah, back to the ad-hominems.

Obviously you do not know what ad hominem is. What BB wrote may be called an /insult/ but it is not ad hominem since it is not even an argument. Ad hominem refers to a fallacious form of /argumentation/. BB's argumentation followed that insult. The insult was not his argument. Do you understand? You are not alone in this increasingly common misconception that insult = ad hominem.

> > A logical data model provides the structure,
> > manipulation and integrity for a formal system. A good
> > logical data model imposes no particular structure on
> > the data as a whole while it does provide a structure in
> > which to represent data. In fact, the structure of the
> > data itself depends largely on one's point of view. One
> > drastically alters the appearance of any graph by
> > starting at a different location and traversing the
> > edges in different directions.
>
> I'm with you so far

So you agree that, unlike a relational data model, an OO (Network) data model imposes expression bias? In other words, that it creates a asymmetric navigational structure that artificially makes some computations more difficult to express? And do you think this is good? If so why?

> As another example, consider your laptop. A lot of data
> is organized on that laptop using a directory and file
> structure rather than an RDB. This seems to work quite
> well as a general purpose organizing principle.

As JMD also pointed out, your choice of filesystems (as in hierarchal filesystem which is clearly what you meant) is a TERRIBLE one. That you find hierarchal file systems "work quite well" shows a HUGELY different assessment relative to MANY other people. No need to rehash the problems with hierarchal systems yet again, but surely you must have noticed at least some of them from a user perspective?

> There is no hue and cry for our filesystems to suddenly be
> RDBs.

Umm ... Haven't you noticed the renewed drive towards searching (querying)? For example Google, Google Desktop, iTunes, Spotlight, Aperture? Have you even heard of WinFS?

  • Keith --
Received on Fri Jun 02 2006 - 12:03:35 CEST

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