From: Clifford Heath <no.spam@...>
Date: 2007-03-15T15:45:24+09:00
Subject: Re: IDEA: Ruby "offline" CD / DVD

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> 1. What sort of explosions of creativity were there in the 1980s?

In my field, there were two, with very different trajectories:
* Relational databases
* 4GL and CASE tools

I believe the time has come for significant progress in both fields,
forward from the success of SQL (such a 1970's language) and forward
past the failure of the model-driven development paradigms. One succeeded
because it had a solid formal foundation, lack of which was why the other
failed. Fact-based models promise to improve both areas.

It's a pity that Rails, in ActiveRecord, tries to drag us back to the
pre-relational ISAM era... I'll be saying a few words about that at
the RailsConf, and hopefully offering an alternative.

I'm discounting the fact that a lot of ordinary folk realized they were
capable of creating an operating system, and some, like Linus, went
ahead and did it (a bit later). But that realization came during the 80s.

Clifford Heath.