[Zope-dev] RFC: RelationAware class for relations between objects

[Leonardo Rochael Almeida]

Hi guys,

Just to get the terminology straight.

This thread (and the one on zope3-dev) seems to be using the terms
relation and relationship interchangeably, but they're not. A
RELATIONSHIP is what we are talking about in this thread: a way to
record (and eventually add data to) a link between two potentially
different objects, whereas a RELATION is a set of similar objects.
Mapping to RDB, a RELATION is a table, whereas a RELATIONSHIP is usually
expressed as a join between two tables by the primary key in one of them
and a foreing key in the other.

In Zope and in Python we already have RELATIONs, by putting a bunch of
similar objects in a list or as children of a Folder or ObjectManager.
We still don't have a convenient way to express RELATIONSHIPs, and this
thread looks very promising in this regard, but the APIs being discussed
here are already calling RELATIONSHIPs RELATIONs and this worries me a
little.

I-only-know-enough-about-this-topic-to-annoy-people'ly yours Leo.

-- 
Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't like
solitary confinement.