[thelist] WYSIWYG x-browser design - is it a reality?

[Rory.Plaire at wahchang.com]

| Hey aardvark,
| 
| I use notepad as an intermediary "scrubber." 

Ok.

I got to thinking about it. I 1) didn't read the preceding posts for
coverage before I engaged and 2) don't think I was lucky enough to do
sufficient "value-add" to excuse my last post as worthwhile to be read by
the generality of the list. (Although I generally like to see things from
different perspectives, and thought that the "chemical engineer" perspective
was pretty different for around here!)

So, a tip:

<tip type="relating with objects and databases">
Ahhh... so you've crafted your solution to take advantage of the many
opportunities that an object-oriented solution can give: extensibility,
reuse, componentization, etc.

Now you need to tie it into a database for persistence... but, er, how?

Chances are, you will be better off, technically, with an Object-Oriented
Database Management System (OODBMS).

Chances also are that you are going to have a hard time convincing
management and the IT culture where you work to embrace this technology.
Objects are more than a way, they are a Way, a Way which generally clashes,
sometimes greatly, with the way that your organization Gets Things Done.

So, we probably need to hoist the solution into a Relational Database
Management System (RDBMS) like MS SQL Server or Oracle or PostgreSQL. But
hold on, objects model more than system entities, they also model conditions
(session, for instance), utilities (factory objects), and means of
relationship (methods and aggregation). Whew... where do we go?

The journey is yours. I only point the way. It lies in Object-Relational
Modeling (aka. Object-Role Modeling).

See:
http://www.orm.net/index.html
http://www.inconcept.com/

for the state-of-the-art.

Also, MS is coming out with Visio 2002 Enterprise Architect edition. Looks
like a powerful database modeling tool!
</tip>