Java: Selecting a Persistence Storage Framework

abakalidis · 06-30-2009, 04:44 AM

Hi everyone,
Does anybody have any experience to share regarding selecting and using a Persistence Storage Framework in Java?

At work we use JDeveloper with Oracle's ADF framework which works good enough for us but

a) it's not free
b) has a very large footprint.

What I have now, is a home project written entirely in Java with a need to store data in a MySQL database. My first impulse was to code everything using JDBC and then -- keeping in mind only the good aspects of ADF -- I started having second thoughts regarding the usage of a storage framework.

I think that the majority of available frameworks can be found in the following JavaSource.net page Having read the list, I am probably turning towards Cayenne, but I have a feeling that I am probably killing a fly with a machine-gun.

Any thoughts / advice will be most welcome.

Athanassios.

kellinwood · 06-30-2009, 10:46 AM

I've used Hibernate for years and have long been frustrated for the need to manually develop the ORM mappings even on a start-from-scratch schema, so the Cayenne promise of code generation for that purpose seems attractive. An advantage with these frameworks is that they provide a single API and work with many database platforms on the backend. In theory this lends a bit of portability in case you decide to switch away from MySQL. The important part of that last sentence being "In theory" -- it turns out that as you get deeper into the ORM aspect of your project, things like custom mappings for database-specific features creep into the code, etc.

But don't look at this as "killing a fly with a machine-gun"... its an important learning experience which you can use elsewhere.

Ken

abakalidis · 07-01-2009, 04:33 AM

Thanks Ken,
I needed that kind of feedback. So Cayenne it is then.

Athanassios