Re: Object-oriented Databases

hi there,

One of the major points against OODBMS is the need to report against  
the DB in an ad-hoc fashion. Lets say you develop an application  
successfully using OODBMS perfectly against known requirements and  
deploy it successfully into production. Down the line the DB will  
aggregate useful data in which the business will be interested in a  
form of ad-hoc reporting. If you have a relational backend then its  
very easy to use Crystal Reports (etc) to generate reports. Matter of  
fact many people are even using Excel for that purpose.
The above was one of the major drivers to force a complete migration  
from OODBMS into a object-relational utility set (toplink for what it  
matters) for a fairly high-level trading application I know of. A  
very painful migration i want to add, which took more than one year  
to complete.

OODBMS are very intriguing from a pure technological perspective but  
I doubt their practicality in the long-term ..

Cheers
     Reimer



On Jul 19, 2005, at 1:49 PM, Andreas Korth wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I was always fascinated by the idea of using an OODBMS (db4objects,  
> for example), instead of having to deal with the issues of object- 
> relational mapping. Almost all product vendors claim, that using an  
> OODBMS outperforms an ORM / RDMBS stack and I'm tempted to believe  
> them.
>
> On the db4objects website (http://www.db4o.com) I came across the  
> following statement: "The major reason for using relational  
> databases today is legacy." Now that sounds perfectly reasonable to  
> me. But since I haven't done a single project  in which I had to  
> deal with a legacy database, I think it's perfectly legitimate to  
> question the use of ORM.
>
> The major case against OODBMS has always been the lack of  
> performance and maturity. But since the concept is around for more  
> than a decade now and a variety of products have evolved, I  
> seriously doubt that this is still valid. Actually, I can well  
> imagine that, at least for some application domains, it has turned  
> against RDBMS.
>
> I would really like to hear if there are real-world experiences  
> with OODBMS - no matter which particular product. I'm especially  
> interested in the implications on EOF. Would an OODBMS render it  
> completely obsolete? Could EOF probably serve as a bridge  
> (transition) between the two worlds? Would it make any sense to  
> replace the access layer with an OODBMS-enabled one?
>
> I'm eager to hear your thoughts!
>
> Cheers,
> Andreas
>
>
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