Re: An object-oriented network DBMS from relational DBMS point of view

On Mar 14, 9:17 pm, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Daniel Parker wrote:
> > On Mar 14, 9:15 am, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> >>The word "object" is essentially meaningless. It has no clear definition
> >>and gets used to mean a variety of things. Those who use it frequently
> >>do so to impede communication.- Hide quoted text -
>
> > Well, the statement "instance of an ADT" is not meaningless (it can be
> > expressed axiomatically)
>
> What does it mean, though? A variable, perhaps?

Intuitively, a typed record of functions. There's a literature on Abstract Data Types, which makes the notion precise, and as my math professor once said, we're responsible for own intuitions, our own pictures. For everyone who has written a Java interface or a pure virtual C++ class, and provided an implementation thereof, they'll have that as a picture.

But then there's mystery OO - "object identity", "modeling the real world", "behaviour", etc. - which does not lend itself to precise formulation.

Best regards,
Daniel Parker Received on Thu Mar 15 2007 - 03:20:48 CET