Re: Mixing P/R philosophy with OO (within J2EE).

"Harry" <simonsharry@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
I tend to believe in the power of the RDBMS. Unlike OO, it seems to
have a sound mathematical basis, a rigor behind its learning and
mastering.

Most commercial RDBMSs are based to some extent on relational
algebra, but it is important to note that this doesn't automatically
result in faster, better, or cheaper software development. Common
Lisp is based on the equally formal lambda calculus but one rarely
hears that touted as a benefit in and of itself.

I do tend to think that *wherever possible*, we should try not to
use OO to re-discover and learn lessons that have already been
learned a decade or two ago (the network model).

You seem to be channeling Bryce Jacobs. I'd recommend refraining
from making statements like this until you have sufficient personal
experience with OO to understand that competent developers are most
certainly not doing what you suggest.

OO may prove very elegant in the modeling of static, noun-oriented
relationships as found in mathematics, nature, etc but not
necessarily in highly volatile biz scenarios where we cannot and
thus never will, fully understand, ever, the implications of our own
class design choices.

Again, you're showing your lack of experience with the
technology. OO techniques have been and are being used to develop
large, mission critical applications that are flexible in the face of
constantly changing requirements. You should investigate Robert
Martin's papers and some of the agile approaches to learn how.

If there were no incompatibilities in the SQL interface across
vendors [ . . . ], I could still consider exploiting the full power
of the RDBMS for building a *product*.

OO, procedural, relational, functional, and other techniques are
not mutually exclusive, despite what you may have been led to believe
by some overly prolific posters here. Competent developers use the
combination of tools that provides the greatest benefit in addressing
the problem at hand. Don't be a one trick pony.

Finally, I'd like to suggest that you consider one anecdote.
I've been in this industry for almost 20 years. I remember when OO in
general and C++ in particular were first becoming widely used. At the
time, developers were building client-server architectures using
procedural and relational techniques. Over the course of a few years,
many intelligent, experienced developers, all with a solid
understanding of relational databases and procedural programming,
began using OO techniques. Those techniques have been continuously
refined and are still being used today.

What I'd like you to consider is: Does it make sense that every
one of those developers, despite their understanding of the benefits
of relational databases, would have started using OO if they found no
benefits from doing so? Is it really a credible position to imagine
that such a large group of people would succumb to pure hype?

Obviously you should think for yourself and learn the advantages,
disadvantages, and applicability of all of these techniques
personally. However, there are worse ways to prioritize what you're
going to learn than by listening to intelligent, experienced people
who have actually delivered working enterprise-scale systems.

Good luck,

Patrick

------------------------------------------------------------------------
S P Engineering, Inc. | Large scale, mission-critical, distributed OO
| systems design and implementation.
pjm@xxxxxxx | (C++, Java, Common Lisp, Jini, middleware, SOA)
.

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