When it comes to writing an application that uses a relational database (and that’s pretty much all of them, for me), I like to use a tool that hides the details of the database I’m using, and reduces the tedium and error involved in mapping code to database structures. For me, that was JDO - a Java standard that has a great open source implementation in terms of Jpox.
The goal of picking a persistence framework is, amongst other things, to end up using one that isn’t going to be obsolete. This is, of course, impossible. Sooner or later everything becomes obsolete. With JDO going into a version 2 specification process, having gained plenty of vendor and open source support, and also being well thought-out to start with, it looked like a good horse to back. But no.
Some consider there to be too many ways to do persistence in Java, and something had to give. Sun’s Letter to the Java Technology Community makes it clear that JDO isn’t the one to back. What we want, apparently, is a single persistence framework for both J2EE and J2SE. That’s a good thing, but it’s not ready yet.
The Thing That Replaces JDO is going to be specified as part of the EJB 3 process, so you can guess that EJB 3 is going to have a big influence on The Thing That Replaces JDO. I should make it clear that this doesn’t technically kill JDO. The interview with the JDO spec lead, Craig Russell, shows that there’s a commitment to support JDO and for vendors to help migrate us over to The Thing That Replaces JDO. But still, who’s going to invest their time in using JDO when it’s already flagged as obsolete?
While this plays out, then, it seems that the only good bet is going to be Hibernate. It’s not based on a community specification, but it is open source, has lots of users, and has been around for quite a few years. It’s the one I’ll be using.
Paul’s been using it for a while, and suggested I look at the Hibernate in Action book. There’s also a long but useful presentation over at Javapolis. So far I’m impressed: it has that battle-hardened feel to it that gives you confidence that someone else has already suffered the pain in finding and fixing any nasty problems.
