Re: Mixing OO and DB

From: mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org>
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:52:00 +0100
Message-ID: <47af1cd5$0$85789$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>


Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> mAsterdam wrote:

>> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>>> mAsterdam wrote:
>>>> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>>>>> mAsterdam wrote:
>>>>>> Leslie Sanford wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Newsgroups: comp.object, comp.databases.theory
>>>>>>> I cringe every time I see a thread crossposted to these two groups.
>>>>>>> Good seldomn comes of it. 
>>>>>> Do you have an explanation for that?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any ideas except 'the other guys are so stupid'?
>>>>> Market. Both OO and RDB are technologies with market products on sale.
>>>> Let's see if I can play with this using a metaphore.
>>>>
>>>> So are, say, ships and engines (technologies with market products on
>>>> sale). Both have their own laws.
>>>> Designing a motorized boat requires a shared understanding
>>>> of some of them. There is a market for sailing boats,
>>>> there is a market for engines wchich can be used in other things than 
>>>> ships. In this thread, we /are/ mixing. Shouldn't there be a market 
>>>> for motorizing boats and for engines fit for use on a ship?
>>> Ship and engine design are a proper engineering activities, while "software
>>> engineering" is not. Exaggerating a lot, we could compare it with religions
>>> and their "market products." Certainly a god is more worth if there is no
>>> any other...
>> Metaphores only go so far. However, if you are extending it to
>> religion just to illustrate the depth of the divide and the
>> presence of the unknown, there is no need to do so.
>> No shipwright knows all there is to know about ships,
>> even about the ones of his own design.
>> Engines have come a long enough way to have that as well.

>
> So software engineering will do in the future. But presently there is no
> hundreds of years behind us.

What matters here is: does the engineer know everythying there is to know about his product? The answer is no - wether the product is a ship, an engine, a database or a piece of software.

> Consider, year 2000 B.C., a discussion about
> merits of whips against clubs for slave management.

Yet another extension to the metaphore - you think it isn't rich enough?

> Surely slave management
> is fundamental for ships propelling, slaves have to be arranged in rows,
> etc...

In your extension, you appear to map your slaves to data. Slaves behave, objects do. Data doesn't.

>>> All technical disciplines are based on natural sciences which provide a
>>> common ground for an interdisciplinary communication. This is not the case
>>> for either OO or RDB. They not only compete in selling, often snake oil,
>>> which questions whether they indeed are different disciplines, as your
>>> example suggests. 
>> It does indeed. If studying OO and DB are not
>> different disciplines then their whole ground is common.
>> What is left is dogma, groupthink and language.
>> Does that explain the whole of the divide?

>
> Yes, because the common ground is not understood and not even articulated.

All ground is common. This, like Patrick May's stance, invalidates the OP's question.

> When in a subthread Patrick May wrote about the goals of software design
> (quality), you disagreed.

That is not what I disagreed with.
This is a serious misrepresentation.
You can read. Is it intentional?

> In your metaphor, he just said that a ship should
> float. You replied that it is not about ships.

Maybe you just misread it, maybe I said something in an unclear way. Please quote the passage you are hinting at.

> How can we discuss means
> when there is no agreement on what we are going to achieve?
>
> Anybody on my side of the fence
Please describe the fence as seen from your side.

> would say that DB is merely a software.
> But that is a consequence of an even more heretical concept that data is
> a fiction, a product of some language. (So any distinction between DB
> and DBMS is also fictional.)

All models, all concepts are fictional, but we are talking about shared fictions here, so that filosofical insight does not help us here.
I see the same DB/DBMS conflation as Patrick made. I asked Patrick, and I'm asking you:
Do you need that?

> This is what divides us, not engineering techniques.
>

>> Table manners can be quite offensive.

>
> from food's point of view...

You like rapid topic shifts?

--
What you see depends on where you stand.
Received on Sun Feb 10 2008 - 16:52:00 CET

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