Re: Mixing OO and DB
From: mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org>
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:08:48 +0100
Message-ID: <47b75e07$0$14358$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>
>
> I certainly hope not bob. I'm certainly trying to be very formal about
> it (in the spirit of Codd and Dijkstra), because I think if computer
> science ever wants to be taken seriously as a science we really have
> to be able to properly define what our central concepts - physics has
> particles and waves, whereas we have entities and data. Its harder for
> us of course, because unlike hard sciences, we are engulfed by a
> handwavy, buzzword obsessed IT industry.
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:08:48 +0100
Message-ID: <47b75e07$0$14358$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>
JOG wrote:
> Bob Badour wrote:
>> JOG wrote: >>> Bob Badour wrote: >>>> JOG wrote: >>>>> Bob Badour wrote: >>>>>> JOG wrote: >>>>>>> Bob Badour wrote: >>>>>>>> If it is represented suitably for machine processing, it is data. >>>>>>> So before computers there was no data? Really? >>>>>> Of course there was. Computers are not the only machines. >>>>> So when Galileo was looking through a telescope recording his >>>>> observations on paper, what machine was that data for? Or when >>>>> biologists were describing dodo's in their log books, again, what >>>>> machine was that data for? >>>> Pointing to some information that isn't data and observing that it is >>>> not data doesn't demonstrate anything. Okay, some information is not >>>> data. The standard vocabularies already make that clear. >>> I think you misunderstand me. I am saying that the observations >>> Galileo took down in his logbook /was/ data. It never went near >>> machine processing (certainly not in his lifetime), but it was still >>> data. >> I have to ask: Why do you think it is data? Are you not applying the >> colloquial definition which is a synonym for information?
>
> I certainly hope not bob. I'm certainly trying to be very formal about
> it (in the spirit of Codd and Dijkstra), because I think if computer
> science ever wants to be taken seriously as a science we really have
> to be able to properly define what our central concepts - physics has
> particles and waves, whereas we have entities and data. Its harder for
> us of course, because unlike hard sciences, we are engulfed by a
> handwavy, buzzword obsessed IT industry.
Like 'information base' for what we now call database - which would be one of the consequences of Bob's stance.
When I read them, my impression was that parts of the ISO standardized vocabularies are a good example of premature standardization. To illustrate: In the 60's Sovjet Union semi-conductor components got standardized. A Russian electronic engineer told me it effectively blocked the emergence of something like Silicon Valley.
Just anekdote, but telling. Received on Sat Feb 16 2008 - 23:08:48 CET