Re: [Gnue-dev] New Architecture Drawing based on Whitepaper.

[Daniel E Baumann]

On Sat, Dec 07, 2002 at 01:39:00PM +0000, Stanley A. Klein wrote:
> Reinhard -
> 
> I have no problem with the use of the term "object" to refer to things that
> are not OOP.  (I happen to chair an Object Registration Working Group
> within the IEEE Power Engineering Society, where the objects of interest
> are data elements and data structures for use in communication protocols.
> We sometimes call them "data objects" to distinguish them from OOP-type
> objects.)
> 
> My main concern, and I think you may have answered it, is that while the
> relational paradigm restricts data structures to tables and fields
> (preferably normalized according to certain rules), an object paradigm
> allows a wider range of data structures.  For example, an object paradigm
> would allow a data structure whose components could themselves be tables.
> Trying to map such a data structure into a single relational table can be
> very complicated.
> 
> If all the various properties of a GNUe business object map to fields of
> database tables it would seem that they could be expressed as SQL/gsd and
> that the underlying paradigm is really relational regardless of the name.
> BTW, I think this would be quite different from the old GEAS, which to the
> extent I understood it, mapped an object paradigm onto a relational
> database with all the attendant complexities.
> 
> If my understanding of your response is correct, then we need only guard
> against people taking the apparent object paradigm too seriously and trying
> to introduce  non-relational data structures on the front side of the
> appserver.

I have to disagree what made the old GEAS sucked because it was a poor
implementationa and it tried to do too much. I personally like OO
appserver with a relational mapping (and we have code that
does this in appserver/src/_featuretest). There's a nice standard that
is documented called ODMG http://www.odmg.org which is very simplified
compared to what Andrewm (old geas author) did and had planned to
do. Now I don't wanna case any tension but not embracing a standard
such as ODMG will probably be a bad way to go as it will be
reinventing the wheel once again. I also want appserver to work in
2-tier cause some ppl like that. I have written some 2-tier apps that
I may not want to convert to n-tier with an OO design. Plus, data
modeling is never going to go away and 2-tier apps probably can and
are developed more quickly with the current gnue tools. Also, things
like access control and security should be done in common to the whole
project and for the bebefit of the overall project with all tool
author's input, imho. Implementing something solely in appserver and
then saying oh you have to change this and this...just seems to invite
some trouble. There are some ppl (who I shall leave nameless for now)
who put a LOT into GNUe and deserve respect by asking for their input
on things.

At any rate I suppose there will be plenty of ppl who will disagree
with me. Oh well. I hope this message makes the list this time...I had
crafted one a while ago and it went to bit heaven.

Dan
-- 
And if cynics ridicule freedom, ridicule community...if ``hard nosed 
realists'' say that profit is the only ideal...just ignore them, and use 
copyleft all the same.
      -- RMS

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