dswindel@bbn.com (Dave Swindell) (07/09/88)
I am looking for a few good review articles on object-oriented database management software. I am particularly interested in learning about working oodbms systems (as opposed to prototype or planned), availability, performance, and ease of extensibility. With the current interest in applying database systems to biological domains (e.g. strain databases, sequence databases, etc...), I am interested in studying how object-oriented approaches can be applied to the biological sciences. If anyone could point me to some good information sources, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, Dave Swindell BBN Systems and Technologies email: dswindell@bbn.com
moiram@tekcae.TEK.COM (Moira Mallison) (07/12/88)
There have been sessions on databases at both OOPSLA '86 and '87 conferences. The proceedings will provide at good starting place, in general. You might look at recent SIGMOD proceedings, as well. Specifically, two commercially available OODBMS are GemStone (1), and Vbase (2). GemStone has a single language (OPAL) for data definition and data manipulation. OPAL is based on a subset of Smalltalk. More information can be found in "Development of an Object-Oriented DBMS" by D. Maier, J. Stein, A. Otis, and A. Purdy. (OOPSLA '86). Vbase has separate languages for data definition (Type Definition Language) and data manipulation (C Object Processor). It is based on the abstract data type paradigm of CLU. One of the major implications of that basis is a strongly typed system. More information about Vbase can be found in "Combining Language and Database Advances in an Object-Oriented Development Environment" by T. Andrews, and C. Harris. (OOPSLA '87). In terms of availablity, both are available on VMS and Sun. In terms of extensibility, both provide the ability to create your own classes, and subclass off of them. In terms of performance, I don't know of any studies that have been completed in this area. Don't expect anything close to what you get out of a commercial RDBMS, though. The technology is not there yet. Moira Mallison GemStone is a product of Servio-Logic, Inc, Beaverton, Or. Vbase is a product of Ontologic, Inc, Billerica, MA