Re:The Death of the Relational Database
by KiwiNige on Wednesday March 26, 2008 @06:37PM
(#147369)
I've worked with a lot of accounting data, which fits the relational DB model really well. But I can't understand why I have to use an OO model to display it on a screen as a table of rows and columns with the odd field scattered here and there. It just seems like a lot of extra complexity to me when all the users want to see is SELECT * FROM TRANSACTION.... made to look pretty.
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Funny, that's what my users want, and the only object I use to give it to 'em is a CSV parser that happens to have an output method (which works really well).
Users are delighted that all they have to do is click and their Excel/SAS datasets fill up. They are dumbfounded when I show them the code and it is quite literally 4 lines long, and two of them are MIME headers.
Of course, they don't see the definition of the VIEW, but why should they? ;-)
Re:The Death of the Relational Database
by michaelneale on Thursday March 27, 2008 @01:21AM
(#147582)
Indeed. OO is so ill defined anyway. What is documented as OO now I am sure is not what alan kay intended it to be. New popular frameworks like rails don't help either (much) - although its oo-lite - so its not so bad.
still, I am looking forward for an excuse to crack out stuff like arc and walk away from OO for a while (I am allowed to dream).
Re:The Death of the Relational Database
by stcredzero on Thursday March 27, 2008 @08:31AM
(#147704)
I've been working with Smalltalk, which was Alan Kay's creation. Most implementations are not what he intended -- at one Smalltalk Solutions keynote he excoriated all of us. He said that he never intended Smalltalk to become a programming language. He wanted to create a Montessori toy for the mind. That said, I don't think that Smalltalk as a programming language is that far from what he intended. He just never intended it to stop there.