Ed,

Ther eis nothing OOabout either set oriented or record oriented databases. One of the major design issues facing a developer using a relational database with an OO development language is how to map the relational data to the OO implementation. These two design areas are often in direct conflict with each other.

In an effective OO data environment I would simply give an object persistence and forget about the data access stuff. If the OO approach to data was able to be implemented today with any degree of efficacy then we would probably all be using an OO database. OO Databases do exist, but they are not real contenders in the market yet due to complexity and performance rpoblems when compared to the realtional alternatives.