Re: java serialization alternative

Folks, as one who's built ORMs, used ORMs, used OODBMSs and written about
the whole mess, let me make two basic suggestions here:

(*) Don't go down this path here. It's a heavily-laden-with-religion
subject, and nobody's going to convince anybody of anything down that path.

(*) ORMs and OODBMSs have their place in the world, and it's likely to be
larger than the critics would suggest, and smaller than the supporters
suggest. OODBMSs work incredibly well IF your persistence scheme is one
that's entirely an "implementation detail". ORMs work well if your target is
a relational database and you or your development team don't want to manage
the details of mapping the relational set of tuples back to the object
model. Going "straight SQL" works well if your object model doesn't align
well with the model stored in the database, since you {are required to/get
to} write the mapping code yourself.

Those who use ORMs should use an OODBMS just once on a non-trivial project,
just to see what the state of the art is there. Those who use OODBMSs should
do the same. Those who use neither should investigate both. Those who wrote
their own ORM should seek medical help, immediately. :-)

Ted Neward
Java, .NET, XML Services
Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing
http://www.tedneward.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion of advanced Java topics. [mailto:ADVANCED-
> [email protected]] On Behalf Of Donald McLean
> Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 3:24 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [ADVANCED-JAVA] java serialization alternative
>
> On Mon, 31 Mar 2008, Jeff Kesselman wrote:
>
> > Bob Lee wrote:
> > > On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 12:26 PM, Donald McLean <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> We use embedded Derby+Hibernate and I have not found it to be
> either
> > >> cumbersome or fragile. Hibernate took a bit of getting used to but
> once
> > >> I found a recipe that worked, varying it wasn't all that bad.
> > >>
> > > Yeah, I'll take JPA/Hibernate mappings over serialization
> compatibility code
> > >
> > I actually looked at Hibernate for our project.
> >
> > Its a no starter as it requires prescience of the structure of the
> > persistent data prior to the execution
> > of the code.  Something we specifically do not have.
>
> There are ways around those kinds of problems. I've used things like
> XML
> CLOBs for unstructured parts that fit well within a larger structure.
> I've
> also used key/value mappings and node/leaf structures for object
> architectures that didn't resemble traditional relational tables - and
> they work out just fine.
>
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