4 ms·

I don't really understand the need for developers to find some real world scenario or situation that they can use as analogy. Impedance mismatch is a physical

by drw85 5y ago

I don't really understand the need for developers to find some real world scenario or situation that they can use as analogy. Impedance mismatch is a physical thing, it creates physical problems that are based on laws in nature. Having to map your database entities to a model that is different has nothing to do with any physical things, it's a mental construct. If you have a mismatch of impedance, what do you do? You insert something between the two mismatched devices to match the impedance. Isn't that what all software does already anyways? Insert some mapping, converting, transforming layer between the two pieces?

noworld 5y ago
Sometimes novel analogies lead to novel solutions.
- zabzonk 5y ago
  Can you specify a single instance of this?
  - mariodiana 5y ago
    GUI as a desktop.
    - zabzonk 5y ago
      Well, I think that has been somewhat over-rated. Looking at my physical desktop now, I don't see any little "X" icons on the beer bottles littering it, or anything analogous (wish there was). And I hardly ever use the Windows desktop, and haven't for many years, even though I use Windows almost all the time.
zabzonk 5y ago
Yeah, I agree - I'm really anti the over-use (and there is a lot of that) of bad analogies in the software development community - I've never seen the attraction myself. And I'm speaking as someone that has done a lot of teaching in this area. But at least this one is not particularly harmful or obfuscatory - you have A and B and you need to frig things so they can talk to each other.
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  It kind of is? When I have conversations about this, I encounter the term "object/relational impedance mismatch" a lot more often than I encounter people who really have a thorough understanding of what the term describes and why it exists. It often seems to me like the way it functions in our profession is a lot like the way the word "quantum" functions in Deepak Chopra's vocabulary. It's not really a specific, definable thing, so much as an amorphous, esoteric cosmic principle that can be used as a universal logical connector for stitching together any arbitrary chain of reasoning. Which is too bad. I don't think it's actually a particularly difficult concept, when you get down to it. But I do think that the fancy-sounding technical name for the concept tends to obfuscate its meaning by making it sound like a much bigger deal than it actually is.
  - node-bayarea 5y ago
    Completely agree about the Object-relational mismatch. The general term "Impedance Mismatch" is used in several industries to mean the loss in efficiency due to increase in complexity.
node-bayarea 5y ago
"Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch"[1] is been around for decades. Martin Fowler[2] and others who are deeply technical (think Sr. architects, CTOs) use this all the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object%E2%80%93relational_impedance_mismatch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object%E2%80%93relational_impe... [2] https://youtu.be/qI_g07C_Q5I?t=98 https://youtu.be/qI_g07C_Q5I?t=98

by drw85 5y ago

noworld 5y ago

Sometimes novel analogies lead to novel solutions.

zabzonk 5y ago
Can you specify a single instance of this?
- mariodiana 5y ago
  GUI as a desktop.
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    Well, I think that has been somewhat over-rated. Looking at my physical desktop now, I don't see any little "X" icons on the beer bottles littering it, or anything analogous (wish there was). And I hardly ever use the Windows desktop, and haven't for many years, even though I use Windows almost all the time.

zabzonk 5y ago

Yeah, I agree - I'm really anti the over-use (and there is a lot of that) of bad analogies in the software development community - I've never seen the attraction myself. And I'm speaking as someone that has done a lot of teaching in this area. But at least this one is not particularly harmful or obfuscatory - you have A and B and you need to frig things so they can talk to each other.

mumblemumble 5y ago
It kind of is? When I have conversations about this, I encounter the term "object/relational impedance mismatch" a lot more often than I encounter people who really have a thorough understanding of what the term describes and why it exists. It often seems to me like the way it functions in our profession is a lot like the way the word "quantum" functions in Deepak Chopra's vocabulary. It's not really a specific, definable thing, so much as an amorphous, esoteric cosmic principle that can be used as a universal logical connector for stitching together any arbitrary chain of reasoning. Which is too bad. I don't think it's actually a particularly difficult concept, when you get down to it. But I do think that the fancy-sounding technical name for the concept tends to obfuscate its meaning by making it sound like a much bigger deal than it actually is.
- node-bayarea 5y ago
  Completely agree about the Object-relational mismatch. The general term "Impedance Mismatch" is used in several industries to mean the loss in efficiency due to increase in complexity.

node-bayarea 5y ago

"Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch"[1] is been around for decades. Martin Fowler[2] and others who are deeply technical (think Sr. architects, CTOs) use this all the time. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object%E2%80%93relational_impedance_mismatch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object%E2%80%93relational_impe... [2] https://youtu.be/qI_g07C_Q5I?t=98 https://youtu.be/qI_g07C_Q5I?t=98