Re: Is it possible to use a database though any high-level API?

<beachmountain_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1176450656.234173.317120_at_w1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> Correction:
> Is it impossible/unwise to create an application where changes and
> extensions to the bussiness model are automatically reflected in the
> the database part of the application?

This question gets asked from time to time. I don't know what's behind your question, but I'm going to say that, in general, it's a bad plan. At first it seems highly attractive, because one can extend the business model indefinitely without altering the database structure.

However, in every case that I've looked at, the attempt plays havoc with another, more important goal: the goal of self-descibing data. The fact that the business model is reflected in the table design and the constraint design of the database turns out to be one of the most useful features of using a DBMS, rather than a simple file system. The people who make their database model independent of their business model end up managing model evolution themselves, often doing a worse job than they would have done by going the other way. Received on Fri Apr 13 2007 - 16:30:16 CEST