[Vm-dev] Re: A Smalltalk object database idea

Louis LaBrunda Lou at Keystone-Software.com
Tue Dec 29 19:33:36 UTC 2009


Hi Jecel,

>Stephen Pair wrote:
>> OOZE and LOOM by Ted Kaehler, et al did this kind of thing.  Here's a link to the 1981 article on OOZE:http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~eswierk/misc/kaehler81/ 
>> It mentions LOOM, but doesn't go into detail...I think the more detailed LOOM paper(s) are in the ACM digital library.
>
>There are some papers, but chapter 14 of the "green book" is probably
>the best place to learn about LOOM. The book is available at
>
>http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/BitsOfHistory/
>
>Though LOOM (and OOZE) are actually virtual memory systems rather than
>databases, if you don't define what you mean by "database" then they are
>probably good enough for most uses. Going more in the direction of
>industry standard databases, Gemstone is a great example of what can be
>done in Smalltalk. This paper (which I can't read right now) probably
>has some information about it:
>http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=125223.125254
>-- Jecel

I don't know a lot about Gemstone or how it is implemented but an object
database is what I am trying to achieve.  In VA Smalltalk there is Voss
from Logicarts http://voss.logicarts.com/ and Tenacity from TotallyObjects
http://www.totallyobjects.com/tenacity.htm.  I think both are very good
especially Voss.  Both are written is Smalltalk without modification of the
VM.  I think both use proxy objects to link the object in memory with the
database.  I believe they save/read objects to/from the database (made up
of very many small files) with an object dumper/loader.

My idea (if it can work) uses one file (or at least very few) and doesn't
use an object dumper/loader.  I think this may make things faster and
simpler.  By simpler, I mean much less Smalltalk code, no proxy objects,
easier backup of the database (since it is just one file).  The lack of use
of the object dumper/loader may require more work if an object definition
changes.

Lou
-----------------------------------------------------------
Louis LaBrunda
Keystone Software Corp.
SkypeMe callto://PhotonDemon
mailto:Lou at Keystone-Software.com http://www.Keystone-Software.com



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