• David: I would hope that I haven't built quite that bad of a reputation for apoplexia! 

    I admit that I do tend to respond to certain topics rather forcefully, but that is because I've seen too many systems just like the one you and Adam describe, and it annoys the hell out of me when I have to clean up the mess.  I have often likened a job like that to trying to separate the toilet paper out of the sewage; at best it's a nasty, difficult job, at worst it's a nasty difficult job that also happens to be impossible.  Then to hear (or read) someone put forth this kind of "solution" as "elegant" just makes me want to wring their neck...

    To anyone reading this: Relations (db tables) <> OO Objects!!!!!  Don't make that mistake, they are not even close to being the same thing.  This is what C.J. Date called the "First Great Blunder" which Adam and I have discussed before...

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    If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek

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