Re: Objects and Relations

David BL wrote:

> Many of the wars between the OO and RM camps end up in side issues,
> often with unsubstantiated performance or scalability claims or
> discussions about whether physical independence is good or bad.
>
>
> 1. OO is good for string, deque, front ends, simulations, games
> 2. RM is good for storing information about Employees, Students,
> University courses, Inventory systems, Invoices.
>
> These predictions are borne out in practice.

You can arrive at the same conclusions by a simpler route.

All databases, RM or otherwise, are about record-keeping. That is their purpose. Designing a good database server is about design a faithful record-keeping system.

All programs, OO or otherwise, are waiters, or if you like, taxis. They carry things from point A to be B.

Back before we threw the classics out of our schools, everybody would know from here that the design question was how to use these two "right things" in "right relation to each other". The design question is how to build an interface that allows each to do its job well, in its own way, and to also translate information between them.

Any approach that seeks to mask the nature of one and make it look like the other cannot possibly be as efficient because that approach will have to re-invent all of the features it threw away when it turned one into the other.

-- 
Kenneth Downs
Secure Data Software, Inc.
(Ken)nneth_at_(Sec)ure(Dat)a(.com)