Re: Enterprise using WO

Howdy Mark (et al.),

On 21/05/2005, at 10:50 PM, Mark F. Murphy wrote:

> Well, I don't think it's quite like that.
>
> Many people in the java space have not been happy with EJB 1.x and 
> 2.x.  Hence, that's why there was a JDO effort... and several other 
> approaches (like Hibernate).  The open source community has reacted to 
> the misguided EJB 1.x and 2.x specs.

Sure, there is a lot of that too.  But there is nothing more motivating 
than the growing popularity of a competitor's platform.

>> Although I wonder why (if) you really need per-user database 
>> connections.  Of course, and as you suggest different instances 
>> obviously use different connections.
>
> Not on a per-user basis... but a pool, for sure, allows for 
> scalability to reduce contention and blocking.

Sure, but I think the  Alejandro mentioned "per-user" connections as 
well.  I understand the utility of a pool.

>>> I can get developers with Hibernate knowledge in the market right 
>>> now.
>>
>> That's true, although I would assume worthy developers would be able 
>> to pick up EOF without much trouble (i.e. if they had a good 
>> understanding of OO, O/R Mapping, SQL, frameworks, ...).
>
> It's not so much someone couldn't learn it... but it's certainly nice 
> to have people understand the tool instead of having to train them.

Sure.  But personally, I'd rather have better quality developers that 
need to learn a new platform (than lesser quality developers who may 
think they know a platform).  Of course, having better quality 
developers who know a platform is even better.

>> However, the one thing about Hibernate that concerns me when compared 
>> with EOF (or Cayenne in the future) is the lack of support for 
>> client-side business objects in a thick client.
>
> How many client side projects have you done with EOF?  Just asking.

A few pure JavaClient and a few DirectToJavaClient of varying degrees 
of size and complexity, some of which are in production, some still 
under development, some just prototypes.

> We've done exactly one in all of our years of WO development (and it's 
> in production).  We've also had to deal with the nasty JavaClient bug 
> that existed until 5.2.4 just came out.

Yes, there are quite a few limitations of, and bugs in, JavaClient.  
However, I still don't know (and would be interested to hear) of any 
products that provides similar functionality.

I know Cayenne is in the process of adding distributed "editing 
contexts."  It will be interesting to if Andrus and team can learn from 
the problems with EOF and do a better job.

> However, we've already given some thought on how we might be able to 
> use hibernate in a JavaClient like way.

That's a long way from having a solution, especially since I don't 
believe it was made for anything like it.  That said, I'd be interested 
to hear of any possibilities you see.

I'm looking for a product or technologies that would enable complex 
object models to be efficiently distributed to thick clients 
(especially those with a large number of read-only objects).

>> So in short, when "we" move to thick clients on the Intranet (for our 
>> n-tier enterprise Web application), solutions like EOF and Cayenne 
>> would be most advantageous.  Again, someone please correct me if 
>> Hibernate offers a good solution for client-side business object in a 
>> thick client (besides a two-tier approach).  Or if there are any 
>> other technologies / products that enable client-side business 
>> objects.
>
> I have no doubt that if the world starts to move towards a "thick 
> client" world, the community will figure out a way to extend the EJB 3 
> spec (i.e., Hibernate is an implementation of EJB 3) to accommodate.

Of course, they would (have to) otherwise they would be left behind.  
Like a number of Apple technologies, JavaClient is just too far ahead 
of its time.   Others will copy or do similar in the future.

And some would say that EJB3 is an abstraction of Hibernate.

Cheers,
Ashley.


--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
Skype Name: MrHatken (GMT + 8 Hours!)