You know... I can appreciate an informed opinion. But, your peer is clearly lacking in his assessment. All i can say is that you peer has some absurd notions and ridiculous antidotes. They clearly don''t understand the nature of the technologies they are talking about. I really don't feel like fighting against egregious and irresponsible ignorance. I'd much rather discuss intelligent objections and ideas. However, i'll throw in a few comments. I truly don't care to get mixed any deeper into this.
-------------------------- Their argument: 1. For small project SqlMap is adding unnecessary complexity. This is ridiculous. It adds simplicity. That is it's nature. JDBC MADE EASIER. iBatis handles all the mundane work that would do by hand coding JDBC anyways. So, where is the complexity? I've used iBatis on complex and simple systems alike. 2. Why learn one more tool when you have a simple base data access object that gives you connection, prepared statement and a result and does cleanup? (only when extended class calls cleanup() !!!) Not sure if you are referring to a home spun solution or jdbc. Regardless, it is still a mute point. iBatis is super easy to understand. It is an OSS project that has the support of a strong community and therefore relieves you from having to maintain the code base alone. 3. Generally open source projects dies shortly and does not have support. I can't say how ridiculous this is. Look throughout the history of technology. It is the OSS products that have survived and thrived across the years But, let me say, that is why we have joined the Apache group. Apache has a rigorous process of analysis to make sure that the projects it adopts are long living projects with a happy healthy community. BTW iBatis has thrived on it's own for over 2 years now. We are hardly short lived. Also, we have a .NET version of our framework and there is discussion of a PHP and Ruby version. 4. Adding many jars of those open source projects make out project more complex and un-maintainable. This one is hardly worth commenting on. What project does not include jars? Are they suggesting that proprietary products somehow have less? Wow, ignorance abounds. However, let me also say that iBatis goes through great care to reduce dependencies on jars. We have very few dependencies and most of them you would need anyways with a database project. 5. What if SqlMaps goes out of market? It is fairly new and not hardened. Will SQL go out of market? Will JDBC go out of market? answer those questions and you will have your answer. -------------------------- RE: <my-peers-arguments> "1) You add multiple third party jars (open source or otherwise), which you need to be aware of when building new apps. These include components which the vendor will eventually provide if the market demand is high..." The vendor generally foists copious amounts of unnecessary crap on you as it is. Wouldn't it be nicer if you have a clean decisive stack. Your peer seems to be contradicting themselves. So, jars are okay to fill your project so long as they come from a vendor? "2)You add multiple configurations for each of those products, which you need to understand on how to tune in case there are performance issues." iBatis tuning is simple and the config files are simple too. If you can or do code JDBC you can iBatis. The configurations are merely containers for your SQL code. If that's too much for someone then i suppose they should find a new means to access the database with Java. "3) Most of these components seem to be build on the current versions of jdk which take a decent time to hit mainstream commercial product support." iBatis is JDK 1.3 compatible "4) If these products are not built to a spec (even though they may end up driving a spec), the migration process becomes an added overhead. Even when they do become a part of the spec, the implementation differences of the vendor of choice may be so different that you pretty much waste any advantage of early adoption. If you are a vendor of a product, an effective early adoption can translate into you either being bought out by the bigger established vendor or you getting to be a key player in that space....but we don't fall in that category." Okay another nonsense argument. It's not a spec. But, if it was a spec we would face the same problem as those things that are not a spec. What exactly is this person arguing? Do they want to write everything by hand internally and avoid external dependency? Think of this... if by some chance ibatis stopped... you could pick up the ball and keep coding it. Or if your buddy thinks that using some framework that has been established by a large corporation will somehow serve you better then that is silly too. Every product has it's lifecycle and upgrading is a reality. However, with iBatis we have gone through significant effort to make those transitions easier. You only see backward breakage when it comes to version releases. That being said we made it possible to migrate from 1.x to 2.x with GREAT ease compared to the hoops many of the larger corporate dealers force you through for upgrades. "5)You need to be able to train existing resources to use the product (unless there is a plan to let go people and get "new" fresh resources who may have had experience with the adopted product). Now if the existing resources themselves have a discomfort moving over to an object oriented paradigm, putting up them up against the challenges of going thru the learning curve of extra products further lowers the probability of success." This is true. But, isn't this the case with ANY product. I believe in investing in commodity skills for a large company. But, that is why iBatis has remained close to SQL and JDBC avoiding the complex and convoluted route of the O/R sliver bullet. BTW, we are not O/R. We are a SQL Mapping Tool. We do not map tables to Objects. "6) You increase the possibility of chaos and reduce flexibility of resource utilization." I think this is a bit melodramatic and overstated. You certainly have to be concerned about unneeded complexity. But, if you are going to code straight JDBC you will face more complexity than iBatis. "Now my perpective looking at the example below, one of the key shortcommings that I see is it couples the "Display/View" with the model (Data Access)...." Again, this is simply NOT true and it hurts to even comment on this. iBatis follows a common and WELL accepted approach called the DAO pattern. iBatis should in no way be accessible to the view. But, this is hardly something we can prevent people from doing. IBM can't even prevent stupid people from being...well... stupid. "Another disadantage that I mentioned yesterday was if your display object gets created from multiple datasources (one db2, one sybase) transaction management becomes an issue...." Spring provides a great means of cross database transaction management. We are currently working on JTA support. Also, I thought your peer just got done saying these were simple apps? "ts a perspective with substantiation. In the end we should try to do things becuase they make sense to our environment, not just because it's cool technology." I totally agree!!! However, i would caution your peer on trying to sound intelligent about things they know nothing about. They should take a few minutes and understand something before criticizing it with ridiculous statements. "iBatis: 1) Probably good documentation and support from user forums as compared to the ucop jar's jdbc component. However, the design principle used for all ucop component is to enable novices to use it within minutes (and thats something that has already been proven) 2)Resources with iBatis experience can be hired (Is there a plan?)...." The fact that your peer can't comment on the realities of the advantages further underscores their irresponsible ignorance. They should temper their opinion with reality, not conjecture. iBatis is excellent for novices and gurus alike. iBatis resource can be hired because all you need to put into the job description is "Must know JDBC". I think you will find plenty who meet that criteria. "Hibernate V/s CMP: Actually I cant think of any advantages since I know we have a EJB container.... " <sarcasm> And we all know EJB has been a raving success and pinnacle of simplicity and design precision. </sarcasm> -------------------------- Hopefully i haven't been too harsh here. I just don't think your peer understand the proposed solutions. It sounds to me like they have taken just enough time to research why your company should NOT use iBatis or Hibernate. Rather, they should take time to understand how these technologies could actually assist your development. The focus and intent of their argument is colored by their clear intent to undermine ever thing that isn't packaged and distributed by IBM and/or coded and maintained in house. One final question, did this "peer" develop the current data access solution. It sounds a bit like there is an ego issue floating around in the argument. Man! i said i was gonna be short... guess i was a bit more enthusiastic. Brandon On Apr 7, 2005 11:55 AM, Kaushik Ashodiya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > > I have hard time arguing for iBatis SqlMaps (not because something wrong > with SqlMaps). > > Please give me more reasons so that I can convince them. > > Their argument: > 1. For small project SqlMap is adding unnecessary complexity. > 2. Why learn one more tool when you have a simple base data access object > that gives you connection, prepared statement and a result and does cleanup? > (only when extended class calls cleanup() !!!) > 3. Generally open source projects dies shortly and does not have support. > 4. Adding many jars of those open source projects make out project more > complex and un-maintainable. > 5. What if SqlMaps goes out of market? It is fairly new and not hardened. > > > > > <my-peers-arguments> > Again to re-iterate a point I was trying to make yesterday, architecturally > speaking you should always try and keep it simple (not on an individual > application level) but as far as possible on an enterprise level. I'm going > to ask you the same question that I asked yesterday...what do you think are > the advantages/disadvantages of O/R mappings for relatively small > applications where persistance is not the deciding criteria (or for that > matter not even a criteria)?(I've attached yesterdays email thread for Kevin > since he didn't get that one :)) > > I'll list the disadvantages: > 1) You add multiple third party jars (open source or otherwise), which you > need to be aware of when building new apps. These include components which > the vendor will eventually provide if the market demand is high... > 2)You add multiple configurations for each of those products, which you > need to understand on how to tune in case there are performance issues. > 3) Most of these components seem to be build on the current versions of jdk > which take a decent time to hit mainstream commercial product support. > 4) If these products are not built to a spec (even though they may end up > driving a spec), the migration process becomes an added overhead. Even when > they do become a part of the spec, the implementation differences of the > vendor of choice may be so different that you pretty much waste any > advantage of early adoption. If you are a vendor of a product, an effective > early adoption can translate into you either being bought out by the bigger > established vendor or you getting to be a key player in that space....but we > don't fall in that category. > 5)You need to be able to train existing resources to use the product > (unless there is a plan to let go people and get "new" fresh resources who > may have had experience with the adopted product). Now if the existing > resources themselves have a discomfort moving over to an object oriented > paradigm, putting up them up against the challenges of going thru the > learning curve of extra products further lowers the probability of success. > 6) You increase the possibility of chaos and reduce flexibility of resource > utilization. > > Besides the six points above, I would not recommend use of products like > iBatis in applications at UCOP is because in my opinion the applications > that we do or have done are relatively small and O/R mapping for those kinds > of apps is probably an overkill (again personal opinion.) To some level > Hibernate is a valid candidate for evaluation (taking into account that it > is driving the EJB spec). But again, my business acumen says that IBM will > definitely take care of that. > > Now my perpective looking at the example below, one of the key > shortcommings that I see is it couples the "Display/View" with the model > (Data Access).... Basically what this means is that if you wanted to create > the same object tomorrow from not a "non" database/jndi source, you would be > re-writing the logic for creating the same object. Another disadantage that > I mentioned yesterday was if your display object gets created from multiple > datasources (one db2, one sybase) transaction management becomes an > issue.... How would you use iBatis in a system which does not need > persistanc but needs transaction management? > > Isn't the whole idea of going with some big commercial vendor like IBM to > consolidate your infrastructure source so that you dont knock on different > doors? Often such a vendor is selected based on how many services required > by a business are provided by the vendor. Nothing against Hibernate or > iBatis. I'm sure they are great at what they are designed to do. But each > one of them doesn;t do all that we probably need (they still need an > underlying EJB container.) If thats the case, why would you want to > introduce the additional learning curve and the additional layer associated > with each product? Do you truely think that it's a necessity? > > > Short of long: I would recommend usage of vendor supported spec based ejb > conatiner for applications needing persistance or transaction management. > Eventually these will be simplified (if there is fear of complexity....thats > an issue the specs and the commercial vendors like IBM will definitely > answer). If persistance is not required, use the existing framework > component. What that does is you dont have to code the basic JNDI lookups, > creation of connections, clean ups. Since you are pretty much just > accessing data, there is no coupling between the dataaccess and object > creation. The learning curve is almost next to nothing. So I'd recommend > for the present continue usage of the existing "Model" framework... > > Just a small note on the side we'll still need to maintain components that > we develop to be UCOP specific...(e.g. Employee Object etc). These will > have to be harvested in a generic layer outside individual applications, > else we commit the same mistake that was made on ucfy, fje and danris (you > copy the same code over and over again!!) > > > I wasn't ever saying iBatis is an O/R tool... that was for Hibernate (I am > trying to get your view on advantages/disadvantages of O/R mappings for > relatively small applications where persistance is not the deciding > criteria.) The last email was just providing my thought process for not > recommending the use of products that probably have little or no advantages > for a business like UCOP. > > Its a perspective with substantiation. In the end we should try to do > things becuase they make sense to our environment, not just because it's > cool technology. Is there a significant business advantage to using either > iBatis or Hibernate, considering that we have existing solutions, be it ucop > framework's jdbc component (comparing it with iBatis) or EJB/CMP (comparing > it to Hibernate). > > I've listed some of the disadvanatges of using iBatis and Hibernate in our > environment. Just to be fair, let me try to list some Advantages: > > iBatis: > 1) Probably good documentation and support from user forums as compared to > the ucop jar's jdbc component. However, the design principle used for all > ucop component is to enable novices to use it within minutes (and thats > something that has already been proven) > 2)Resources with iBatis experience can be hired (Is there a plan?).... > > All right I guess I can't think of more reasons > > Hibernate V/s CMP: > Actually I cant think of any advantages since I know we have a EJB > container.... > > we should talk... it'll be an interesting discussion. > > > </my-peers-arguments> >
