Re: Clean Object Class Design -- What is it?

"Bob Badour" <bbadour_at_golden.net> wrote in message news:<az307.3121$2N6.25501813_at_radon.golden.net>...
> I would go further and state that most, if not all, object models worry
> about a single application to the exclusion of all others.

Well, you may never know.
As much as you wouldn't like others to throw allegation - such as OODBMS's are faster (-which is particularly untrue)- , I think your supposition is based solely on a personal opinion.

As a matter of fact, a quasi-majority of business systems are programmed nowadays in some kind of OO language on the client side, or on the middle-tier side, while they certainly don't suffer from what you have accused.

This relational VS OO fight is quite misguide IMHO, but this is true on both sides of the story.

> >The two camps seldom are talking about the same language or correctly
> >understanding each others' terms.
>
> While I realize that very few object oriented programmers have any knowledge
> of the relational model, I have been very impressed by the depth of
> understanding of object oriented concepts displayed by relational
> proponents.
>
> Quite frankly, Chris Date and Hugh Darwen are the first people I have ever
> seen who made any attempt to use any kind of precise definitions in the
> discussion of object oriented systems.

Quite frankly, being an admirer of Date and Darwen, and feeling quite unbiased after being "shot at" from both sides, I can safely say they have a rather weak understanding of OO technologies as they are used today.

The main misunderstanding is that they think there's only one OO model, or even it can eventually be only one OO model, and trying to come up with that "THE OO model" themselves.

The second one is that they choose to combat arguments from rather poor OO exponents , mainly in OODBMS and UML camp. They are of course right on their polemics, but they miss the real target (OO programming), if there's even a need to have such thing as a target,

> >>What constitutes a "clean" object class design? How does one achieve the
> >>goal of "cleanliness"? How does one recognize a "clean" design vs an
> >>"unclean" design? Are the steps for achieving a "clean" design documented
> >>anywhere? Can we deterministically determine whether a given design is
> >>"clean" ?
> >
> >Again, most object discussion center around optimizing today's
> >implementation in terms of complexity or execution or whatever.
>
> Could I paraphrase the above to: "Most object discussions center around
> optimizing the physical storage for an individual application." ?

Really, so it follows that relational people are generally smart while OO people are generally kind of stupid ...

So, in the end, there's NO definition of clean OO design (or class design) out of context, because while we might talk of only one relational model, there are a several OO models under the sun.

However, I haven't heard this notion of "clean object class design" in any OO model that I know of, so probably it's only a "metaphore". You have to ask the guy who wrote such a thing and maybe share what you've found. If he/she gives you a precise definition then you should look at it rather suspiciously.

On the oher hand the real issue is that denormalization is hardly THE only way to achieve a fully normalized and well thought database design, and as a method I find it awkward to say the least.

One can use other techniques which lead to a demonstratable fully normalized database design, and maybe your correspondent tried to refer to such an alternative method. But if he/she talked of "clean class design" I rahter doubt that.

Costin Received on Sun Jul 22 2001 - 01:33:12 CEST