Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!ucsd!sdcc6!calmasd!wlp
From: wlp@calmasd.GE.COM (Walter L. Peterson, Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Object Oriented DB Articles ?
Summary: Is the best good enough ?
Message-ID: <37@calmasd.GE.COM>
Date: 27 Aug 88 23:58:47 GMT
References: <3560019@wdl1.UUCP>
Organization: GE-Calma, San Diego R & D,   Object and Data Management Group
Lines: 60

In article <3560019@wdl1.UUCP>, lmurray@wdl1.UUCP (Lance Murray) writes:
> ... I am trying to make
> up a reading list, but I don't want to prejudice the list by what
> I considered important. As the list will be derived from input 
> by all of you "professionals in the field" the list shall represent
> what "industry and academia" considers important in this new field.
> ...	

 Your idea of "important" is probably just as good, if not better,
than what we so-called "experts" think.  There are, currently, few 
papers on the subject (as compared to say, relational systems). 
Many of the papers are more of the form of reports on prototype
systems or newly released commercial products.  In most of these the
concept of "important" is very much driven by the point that the author
is trying to get accross, usually why his system is "better".

I, personally, would have a better idea of what to suggest if I knew
for what purpose you intend to use the reading list.  Is it for a
class that you are taking or for one you are teaching? Is it simply
for your own edification? Is it for background research for a commercial
venture?

Currently some of the best sources are the proceedings of the past
Object-Oriented Programming: Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA)
conferences sponsored by the ACM.  There are proceedings available from 
ACM for the '86 and '87 OOPSLA conferences; the third OOPSLA will be
held here in San Diego at the end of Sept.  There are also proceedings
from the European conference, ECOOP, available from Springer-Verlag
publishers.

There are some very good papers in each of these proceedings.  Some
good papers have also appeared recently in the ACM Tranactions on 
Database Systems and Transactions on Office Systems.  The
Communications of the ACM have also had a few articles in the past
year. Some of the "popular" computer magazines ( DDJ, AI, etc ) have
also carried some articles in the last year or so.

As someone who is involved in the research and development of object-
oriented systems, I feel that I must share some of the blame ( if any
is due ) for the lack of good papers in the field.  

Part of the problem is simply defining just what an object-oriented 
database management systems is supposed to be. Maybe in that respect
you ( by that I mean all of you out there ) can help.  The readers of 
this news group should be a good source of information about what 
professional database users and developers expect of an OODBMS.
What do you expect? For what are you looking? Are we meeting your
expectations? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong?

I realize that none of this directly addresses the theoretical 
considerations of OODBMSs, but if we don't know what kind of systems
we should produce, we can't develop the theory needed to produce the
products. So, perhaps we can get a discussion going here on the net
about OODBMSs?

-- 
Walt Peterson   GE-Calma San Diego R&D
"The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those
GE, GE-Calma nor anyone else.
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!wlp        wlp@calmasd.GE.COM