Relational of OR/M??? *lol*
Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 8:59 pm
Ignore the oxymoronic subject title please...and read on... 
So I spent the better part of today reading a book which I found through Google on relational theory...interesting read, I'd strongly suggest anyone who has battled with whether to use OR/M or not, to read some articles and/or books on the subject of relational theory (hopefully one from a conceptual level and nor so much theory as the math might make your head spin).
Anyways, I now have a very solid understanding as to why I have never *really* liked OR/M...yes when first introduced it seemed cool, despite being somewhat skeptical, I continued reading about it. I worked on a few of my own implementations and hit occasional road blocks. Although it's obvious that relational data models are very different from object data models...how much they differ never sunk in until reading this booklet.
Basically IMHO - OR/M is a nasty hack
However there is much that can be learnt (learned??) from the study of OR/M...constructing SQL statements is a burden...doing them efficienctly and effectively is even more of a PITA (security issues, complex joins, etc).
I have sat down and ran off some ideas for a procedural library which takes some ideas from OR/M (at least some I have concluded whilst writing my own OR/M classes) but applies them at the relational level...so hopefully you get some benefits of OR/M without the over head and awkward feeling of hacking something togather
Before I go spending any great deal of time researching this subject and self-study...does anyone know of anything which might head me in the right direction? Perhaps a library which does just what I am looking for?
Have you also considered this and find the topic interesting? Would you care to bounce some ideas off me? I'm interested in hearing how others may have tackled similar situations?
Do you have any suggestions on what parts of OR/M or any kind of advanced SQL toolkit might enhance the process of writing SQL queries, etc? For instance, maybe a toolkit which made pagination easier? I'm looking for ideas like that...experiences, etc???
Cheers
So I spent the better part of today reading a book which I found through Google on relational theory...interesting read, I'd strongly suggest anyone who has battled with whether to use OR/M or not, to read some articles and/or books on the subject of relational theory (hopefully one from a conceptual level and nor so much theory as the math might make your head spin).
Anyways, I now have a very solid understanding as to why I have never *really* liked OR/M...yes when first introduced it seemed cool, despite being somewhat skeptical, I continued reading about it. I worked on a few of my own implementations and hit occasional road blocks. Although it's obvious that relational data models are very different from object data models...how much they differ never sunk in until reading this booklet.
Basically IMHO - OR/M is a nasty hack
However there is much that can be learnt (learned??) from the study of OR/M...constructing SQL statements is a burden...doing them efficienctly and effectively is even more of a PITA (security issues, complex joins, etc).
I have sat down and ran off some ideas for a procedural library which takes some ideas from OR/M (at least some I have concluded whilst writing my own OR/M classes) but applies them at the relational level...so hopefully you get some benefits of OR/M without the over head and awkward feeling of hacking something togather
Before I go spending any great deal of time researching this subject and self-study...does anyone know of anything which might head me in the right direction? Perhaps a library which does just what I am looking for?
Have you also considered this and find the topic interesting? Would you care to bounce some ideas off me? I'm interested in hearing how others may have tackled similar situations?
Do you have any suggestions on what parts of OR/M or any kind of advanced SQL toolkit might enhance the process of writing SQL queries, etc? For instance, maybe a toolkit which made pagination easier? I'm looking for ideas like that...experiences, etc???
Cheers