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

From: Marshall <marshall.spight_at_gmail.com>
Date: 3 Jun 2006 15:06:20 -0700
Message-ID: <1149372380.921924.27780_at_g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>


Laurent Bossavit wrote:
> Marshall,
>
> > If your data is only available
> > behind a programmatic interface, then any analysis you want
> > to do means you have to write and compile code. You can
> > do an amazing amount of analysis on a database by simply
> > typing in interactive one-off SQL queries.
>
> SQL queries are what, if not code ? You have to write them - some part
> of the system has to compile them - some other part executes them.
>
> What makes a SQL query different from code ?

The specific question you ask is roughly: what is the definition of code. Definitional questions don't interest me much.

The point that I'm trying to make is: how hard is it to do ad hoc analysis of a database when the database supports a SQL interface, vs. a custom C-function or Java-class API? There is a significant difference in the efforts needed, and in the degree of flexibility that is supported.

As to whether we use the term "code" to describe one or both of those approaches, I have no strong opinion.

Marshall Received on Sun Jun 04 2006 - 00:06:20 CEST

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