Re: Mixing OO and DB

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:34:45 -0400
Message-ID: <47b202e9$0$4046$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net>


Stefan Ram wrote:

> Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca> writes:
>

>>Already done. See the ISO/IEC 2382 Standard Vocabularies.
>>Data is information suitably encoded for machine processing.

>
> Parties are free to choose or not to choose to include the ISO
> vocabulary into their contracts. For research in computer
> science, using ISO vocabularies might not always be appropriate.

For research in computer science, I expect to see a full definition of every significant term. In general, for example, I would not expect to see a research paper make heavy use of a term like 'object'. Instead, I would expect it to define the computational model and demonstrate properties of that model.

> Alan Kay coined the term »objec-oriented programming«,
> and he wanted »get rid of data« in 1967:
>
> »It was probably in 1967 when someone asked me what I was
> doing, and I said: "It's object-oriented programming".
>
> The original conception of it had the following parts. [...]
>
> - I wanted to get rid of data.«

Good for him. Calling data something else doesn't really get rid of it, though.

> http://www.purl.org/stefan_ram/pub/doc_kay_oop_en
>
> The ISO vocabulary might not be what he had in mind.

And since he didn't bother to define what he had in mind, his statement is essentially meaningless. I fail to see the point in directing attention to that which is meaningless.

> »Information suitably encoded for machine processing«
> might include too many things (like objects and programs).

As Mr. Jones, my high school french teacher, was fond of observing: "You have a fine grasp of the obvious."

Program texts are data. The term "object" is essentially meaningless and ridiculously overloaded. Whether one means object class, object instance or object state, objects are data nevertheless. Received on Tue Feb 12 2008 - 21:34:45 CET

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