Re: Objects and Relations
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 03:13:07 GMT
Message-ID: <7nSxh.3051$R71.46271_at_ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>
JOG wrote:
> On Feb 6, 1:01 am, "David BL" <davi..._at_iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
>>On Feb 6, 5:01 am, Kenneth Downs <knode.wants.t..._at_see.sigblock>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Walt wrote:
>>
>>>>>>All databases, RM or otherwise, are about record-keeping. That is
>>>>>>their purpose.
>>
>>>>>I presume by "keeping" you mean persistence. By "record" do you mean
>>>>>a tuple of a relation? If so I don't agree. An RDB is about "record
>>>>>keeping", but not an OODB (used appropriately).
>>
>>>>I don't think the term "record-keeping" is closely related to the term
>>>>"record" as you assert above.
>>>>Record-keeping predates electronic computers.
>>>
>>>Yup. I abandoned this thread as soon as I saw that it was never going to be
>>>about down-to-earth ideas.
>>
>>Down to earth as in "muddy"? :)
>>
>>Could you please define in more detail what "record keeping" means?
>>For example does it include the recording of large amounts of text?
>>
>>I think your characterisation of database versus programs (record
>>keepers versus taxis) has to do with persistent state versus transient
>>state, or perhaps disk versus memory+CPU rather than with the
>>distinction between relational (state) and OO (state).
>>
>>I note that systems based on RM provide the means to manipulate the RM
>>state. So it doesn't seem quite right to say that RM is about
>>passive state and OO is about active state. Remember as well that
>>most objects don't host their own threads and therefore are passive
>>(meaning they only do things when a thread calls their methods).
>>
>>I claim that the distinction between OO and relational has a lot to do
>>with the question of whether entities are inside or outside the
>>abstract computational machine, noting that 1) secondary storage is
>>part of the machine so persistence has nothing to do with it, and 2)
>>at the system level both relational and OO based approaches are
>>"active" so that has nothing to do with it either.
> > Then it seems that what you are essentially saying here is - OO > functions at the conceptual layer, and RM at the logical layer. This > is not really breaking news...
Frankly, you give him too much credit. Stop trying so hard to make sense of what he writes and let his nonsense stand on its own. Received on Tue Feb 06 2007 - 04:13:07 CET