Week 6 Group C - Object-Oriented Databases

     An object-oriented database is a system which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming. The objected-oriented databases have been considered since 1980s and the databases have various features such as persistence, support of transactions, security, resilience, etc. And also abstract data types, inheritance and object identity are the features of object-oriented language features. Since the industry trends to sharing the objects, object-oriented database becomes to be important. For example, the object-oriented database allows referential sharing through the support of object identity and inheritance. Referential sharing means applications, products share common sub-objects. The power of object-oriented concepts is delivered when encapsulation and inheritance work together. If the users define many classes and each class has many attributes and methods, the benefit of sharing not only the attributes but also the programs can be dramatic. 

     One of the most important advantages of object-oriented databases is the users, products, applications and platforms can share an integrated repository of information. This advantage makes our real world and the conceptual model become similar, and the object-oriented database is the most natural and most convenient in CAD. There also have some disadvantages about the object-oriented databases, the database is considering as a new product and it’s not as mature as relational database. On the other hand, less experienced and quality programmers become to be another shortage. As a result, client and customer perceived it as being a new, experimental technology. Regardless how nice the databases are, as long as less people use it, that’s a huge problem.

     In the future, at least three major conditions that must be met before objected-oriented databases can be delivered to the clients. First, objected-oriented model must be full-fledged database systems that are compatible with relational databases. Second, application development tools and database access tools must be provided for such database systems, just as critical as use of relational system databases. Application development tools can be graphical browsers or generator. Third, a bridge is needed to allow co-existence of such systems with currently installed relational databases. At last, gradually migrate from current products to the new products.

Reference:

http://www.axswave.com/weblibry/relobjdb.htm

http://people.cs.pitt.edu/~chang/156/19oodb.html

Comments:

Matt: http://ae-510-ay13-14.blogspot.com/2014/02/week-6-relational-database-theory.html

I agree with you that relational databases will get more widely used since object-oriented databases have a long way to go to be mature. And I also learned a lot about relational databases from your post. I like the fact that you looked into the detail with how databases would be used.

Steve: http://ae-510-ay13-14.blogspot.com/2014/02/relational-database-theory.html

I like your example of a file created by a flat database. And they made information difficult, so that’s why relational model is needed. Also you mentioned utilize relational databases without training. I think this is a big advantage for relational databases compare to object-orient databases.