db4o Developer Community

"I used db4o in my code because of the simplicity and native object storage. If you have never used db4o, I suggest it."

by Jared on IOC Containers - Part 3

One of the things I've been working on was trying out the java persistence technology known as db4o.

My intention has been to find a database storage technology that handled hierarchical data well. Relational databases manage many situations very well but even the best ORM (Object Relational Mapping) solution tends to break down when handling deep, flexible and higly modifiable hierarchies.

[...]

Generic attributes such as this often present headaches for ORM frameworks, though not nearly as bad as managing hierarchical data.

So I was pretty sold on using a decent object storage framework.  If I could find one! 

DB4O has pretty much answered my requirements.

Through a mixture of byte code instrumentation and good design the DB4O folks have achieved a minimally intrusive persistence framework that effectively speeds up development, unit testing, and general maintainability of the code.

Jim Mochel (http://simplexsaltations.blogspot.com/2008/10/playing-with-data-model.html)

"db4o is my first choice for fast data storage, it can be set up in a matter of minutes and works great without any additional tuning. No more object-relational mapping to set up and maintain. I use it for embedded applications and as a replacement for existing providers in ASP.NET and ELMAH."

Simone Busoli

"...if you want to really increase productivity you can use the db4objects object database if that is a good fit for your type of application (your object model is the database!) saving you a lot of db to object and back transformation code"

Mike VanZant
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/08/01/whos-afraid-big-net#comment-4039

"Embarcadero Technologies’ acquisition of CodeGear and the announcement of db4o’s support of LINQ are more evidence of the blurring of the lines of application development and database development. Increasingly, application developers want and need better insight and control of the data management aspects of their applications. On the flip side, database administrators are faced with responsibility of ensuring application performance. Common toolsets and better communication can only help both communities achieve their objectives."

Gregory Keller
VP-Product Management at Embarcadero Technologies, Inc
http://metafrequency.blogspot.com/2008/05/train-is-movin.html

At last, I decided to apply DB4O to our project. One important reason is that this strategy lets programmers write code in high level. I don't need to care about any details of database infrastructure. As a result, modification of my original code is little so that it can be done quickly. Moreover, maintenance of code is easier. We store both data and related operations in database instead of scattered places. What's more, support of query is more powerful in DB4O than in Ehcache. It supports three kinds of query languages: Query By Example, Native Queries and SODA. And complex query can be composed easily.

by Gerald Guo
http://zhenhua-guo.blogspot.com/2008/03/state-information-persistence-status.html

And a simple db4o introduction by the same author:
http://zhenhua-guo.blogspot.com/2008/03/db4o-introduction.html

If you are not familiar with db4objects ( DB4O ), it is an object oriented database.  What does that mean?  If I boil it down in laymen's terms : it is a database without tables or columns.
[...]
I did not have to do anything to setup how to save a User object in the database.  It just serializes the object to the database. No need to worry about table names, column names or data types. This all comes for free with this engine, allowing a developer to focus on the domain model and the value-add code, rather than data persistence.
[...]
To help facilitate getting to software that can be demonstrated, I think that using a persistence engine like DB4O could really help with the time to delivery.

http://lostechies.com/blogs/hex/archive/2008/02/26/using-db4objects-as-a-prototyping-tool-part-i.aspx
(includes db4o related source code)

Last time I had to develop a standalone application which would rely on a database, I had to design the whole data model, deploy it into a RDBMS, implement DAOs for CRUD operations and, only then, implement my business logic.

Nowadays, things are so easily made that any dumb ass with access to Google and a Java/C# compiler can do that in no time (RoR developers, stop your urge to coment right here, please)! With C# or Java and db4o [..] you can forget data modelling and deployment and go directly for code development. Just create your classes, and start implementing your business logic.. Your database will be magically generated, deployed and persisted!

So, you have almost for “free (as in code)” the following capabilities:

• Persistence;
• Transactional operations (ACID);
• Object-Oriented querying;
• Standalone or Client/Server environment;
• Minimal footprint;

I recommend everyone, even the ones developing enterprise applications to give some time to these technologies. Perhaps you’ll learn something about flexibility and easiness.

Full post: http://ppires.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/database-access-made-stupidly-simple/