From: Patrick May <patrick@...>
Date: 2004-11-01T12:06:12+09:00
Subject: Re: "Business" objects?


On Saturday, October 30, 2004, at 03:23  PM, James Britt wrote:

> craig duncan wrote:
>> Quoted from ... ruby/gems/1.8/doc/activerecord-1.0.0/rdoc/index.html:
>>  > Active Record � Object-relation mapping put on rails
>>  >
>>  > Active Record connects business objects and database tables . . .
>> ^^^^^^
>> Why does it connect "business" objects? Does this mean it wouldn't be 
>> able to connect "non-commercial" or "NGO" objects? What about 
>> artistic objects? Would activerecord be completely useless for a 
>> database containing info on my personal CD collection?
>
> The word "business" is meant to distinguish those objects from the 
> code devoted to , say, infrastructure.  In other words, they hold the 
> code that lets your application go about its specific business, be 
> that selling widgets, rendering nice pictures, emitting strange 
> sounds, or cataloging your personal CD collection.  The business 
> objects typically sit on top of the framework or infrastructure 
> objects.
>> Please enlighten me as to how something so technologically (not to 
>> mention ideologically) limiting worked its way into the fundamental 
>> design of this library.
>
> It's a common term used among many "professional software developers"; 
> i.e, people who write software for businesses.  There are no doubt 
> other ways to name chunks of code so that you can define and maintain 
> a reasonably clean partition between the plumbing and dishwasher.

It is an odd distinction.  Why is the in-memory code object, transient 
and fleeting, the "Business Object", while the permanent record is 
relegated to the invisible role of "plumbing"?

I prefer to call them BO objects, myself.  Because I think they are a 
smell.  There are points of interface that are important to the 
business.  The place where customers buy things.  The place where 
inventory is recorded.  The interfaces used by non-programmers to 
monitor these things.  All the stuff in between -- the BO domain -- to 
me, all that is just plumbing between the places where the business 
makes money.  Like all other code smells, this one should be managed in 
a discrete fashion.

Cheers,

Patrick