Persist or not persist : comment

[Thomas M. Farrelly]

hi,

This is a comment on the discussion on using explisit save or delete in a 
persistent system.

Practically I agree with the conclusion that _both_ are useful, and both 
should be avaliable. But...

The point of persistence, IMHO, is to make the linking between "the object 
as you operate on it" and "the object as it is stored" implisit. Eliminating 
all the temporary storing and moving back and forth of data from everyday 
programming.

So, in a persistent system there is nothing such as "save", because you are 
_never_ operating on a copy of an object, _only_ real objects. Objects 
change if you change them and are permanent - they last as long as their 
context.

In a persistent system "save" would constitute a "copy" from one 
not-so-permanent context to a more permanent context. A "backup", would be a 
copy to a very permanent context.

Anyway, when it comes to "deleting", surely that must be an option. 
"deleting" as a compliment to "creating" - not "deleting" as a way to hack 
around an "automatic save" mechanism.


Advice or whatever ( what I would do ): Forget about explisit deletion and 
saving, and think EXPLISIT COPYING. You will need a copying mechanism 
anyway.



cheers,
  Thomas







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