Re: What databases have taught me

From: Bruno Desthuilliers <onurb_at_xiludom.gro>
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:57:13 +0200
Message-ID: <44b4f1a9$0$18621$626a54ce_at_news.free.fr>


Bob Badour wrote:
> topmind wrote:
>

>> Bruno Desthuilliers wrote:
>>
(snip)

>>>
>>> Bob,
>>>
>>> "topmind" is our pet crank here on comp.object.

>
>
> I have been aware of topmind for many years. While I don't always agree
> with him, he exhibits none of the psychosis common among cranks.

Not being able to back up an assertion with anything else than "I don't know why but it is so" is enough for me - and this has nothing to do with the validity or absence of of the assertion.

> Bruno,
> you, on the other hand, quickly and easily made it into my twit-filter.

Mostly due to reaction to your usual behaviour of insulting people to death.

>

>>> He has a great record of
>>> asserting things without being able to back them with anything else than
>>> "I don't know why but it is so"
>>
>>
>> This is bull. 

cf below.

> The only thing I said that about is why change patterns
>> happen a certain way in biz apps.

cf below.

> Answering that would probably require

>> deep psychological analysis of marketers, lawmakers, and upper
>> management.  I don't understand their psychology and will readily admit
>> that. I can only observe the patterns of changes of mind, not explain
>> them. This is what I get for admitting that I don't know everything.
>> One of the key aspects of business modeling is that you end up modeling
>> personalities of decision makers far more than modeling say laws of
>> nature such as chemistry, geometry, etc. The latter would make life a
>> lot easier.

>
>
> Hear! Hear!

Hear what ? That lots of rules in business apps are subject to rapid and arbitrary change, and are very far from having the same cohesion and stability as most technical/scientific rules ? Wow, now that's a scoop, for sure...

(snip)

>>> , then challenging the others to prove
>>> him wrong, then dismissing answers as either "lab example" (implied :
>>> can't work in real life)
>>

(snip)
>>
>>> or "irrelevant to it's own 'niche'" (which is
>>> defined as "custom biz apps", whatever this may mean).
>>
>> So? X being good at domain Y does not automatically mean it will be
>> good in domain Z.

>
>
> Do you mean like something that's passably good at simulation used for
> everything from dessert toppings to floor wax?

So? X being bad at domain Y does not automatically mean it will be bad in domain Z.

FWIW, the question was:

"""
(BD) Why do you think the same technical problem would require a different technical solution according to the domain ? """

And the brillant answer :

"""
(-T-) Are you asking why OO techniques that apply for one domain don't apply for another? That is a very good question. I don't know why, it just does.
""""

(http://groups.google.com/group/comp.object/msg/159be5dce37fe314)

The first problem here is not the truth value of assertion "OO techniques that apply for one domain don't apply for another", but how this assertion is backed. The second problem is that it doesn't answer the question.

And no, I'm not defending the "DBMS is just a byte-bucket" position. Pointing all the crappy marketing stuff around OO for what is it (crap) is mostly sane. But "I don't know why but it just does" is just not a valid argument.

-- 
bruno desthuilliers
python -c "print '_at_'.join(['.'.join([w[::-1] for w in p.split('.')]) for
p in 'onurb_at_xiludom.gro'.split('@')])"
Received on Wed Jul 12 2006 - 14:57:13 CEST

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