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

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:49:45 GMT
Message-ID: <Zn2gg.16656$A26.384572_at_ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>


Christian Brunschen wrote:

> In article <1149248627.938652.314280_at_c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> <frebe73_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>

>>>If you have the option of using different math libraries (that might use
>>>different algorithms, offer different precision or similar), then that
>>>would indeed be an excellent thing to do, wouldn't it?
>>
>>Yes, in some cases it would be an excellent idea, but why don't we
>>normally separate math libraries? 

>
> Um, we still do, or certainly did until recently, if using C on most Unix
> platforms - you had to explicitly link in a math library, 'libm', if you
> wanted to use anything other than simple addition, multiplication or
> similar.
>
>>Because the cost is higher than the benefits in most cases. 

>
> As things like disk and memory space get less expensive and processors get
> faster, some such costs decrease - in the case of a math library, the
> extra space is hardly even noticable these days, but there may still be
> reasons for why you might want to use a _specific_ math library
> implementation (if you need to have completely repeatable results down to
> the least significant bit, which is somehthing where some CPUs can
> actually differ - or if you can sacrifice some specific accuracy in the
> quest for extra speed, or if you replace code that uses the floating-point
> processor with code that uses the vector unit, or similar).
>
>>It's exactly the same with separating SQL
>>statements. It is a cost associated with that separation. In some cases
>>the it may be resonable to pay the effort, but mostly it is not.

>
> In my experience, it's usually well worth separating out SQL into a, well,
> separate part of the application, for ease of maintenance if nothing else
> (because it keeps all the SQL code, which may be a comparatively small
> proportion of the total code, close together rather than spread out,
> which makes it easier to find, if/when it needs maintenance).

Learn grep. It's a useful tool. Received on Fri Jun 02 2006 - 23:49:45 CEST

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