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Re: Maybe database tables aren't such great "objects," after all ...

by JavaFan (Canon)
on Mar 25, 2011 at 20:15 UTC ( [id://895586]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Maybe database tables aren't such great "objects," after all ...

IMO, database abstraction is useful. But, mapping tables to Perl classes isn't any abstraction at all. It's exposing the details of your database layout to your program - quite the opposite of abstraction.

I've seen the following design a few times, and it's my favourite:


    +------+  +------+  +------+
    | App. |  | App. |  | App. |  ....
    +------+  +------+  +------+

    +----------------------------+
    | Shared application library |
    +----------------------------+

    +----------------------------+
    | Database Interface Library |
    +----------------------------+
                                                 Application
------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Database
    +--------------+  +--------------+
    | Stored Proc. |  | Stored Proc. |  ....
    +--------------+  +--------------+

    +-------+  +-------+  +-------+
    | Table |  | Table |  | Table | ....
    +-------+  +-------+  +-------+

Each layer only talks to the layers directly above or below it. Perhaps overkill for a simple web application, and maybe not suitable for an agile environment, but the application not knowing anything about the table structure gives more freedom than one initially would think.

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Re^2: Maybe database tables aren't such great "objects," after all ...
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Mar 25, 2011 at 20:31 UTC
    I've seen the following design a few times, and it's my favourite:

    I could not agree more. SQL has no place in application code.

    And with Postgres' PL/Perl, you can move most of the heavy lifting into the database, close to the data, often avoiding huge comms overhead, whilst sticking with the powerful, intuative (procedural) language we know and love, for performing the manipulations.


    Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
    "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
    In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
Re^2: Maybe database tables aren't such great "objects," after all ...
by DStaal (Chaplain) on Mar 25, 2011 at 20:54 UTC

    While I might not go quite that far in many cases, I fully agree that 'table==object' is not abstraction. It's just convolution. In most database cases I've worked with, a single object might well have data in multiple tables. (With relations between each other.) Or an object could be made out of just part of a table. Thinking that an object is a table, and vice-versa, is just going to limit your idea of what can be done and what solutions are possible.

      I'm not experienced in using ORMs or the architectures being discussed here, but it seems to me that problems might arise if the database structure is too hidden from the people writing and maintaining an application.

      How do you maintain transactional integrity in a situation where Perl objects reference multiple tables and different Perl objects might have overlapping table references? It seems to me that sometimes, you want to make sure that a number of Objects being updated result in the database tables being updated atomically and not understanding the impact on the underlying tables might lead one to believe this is being done when it's not. Conversely, you might only want to operate on a single object and have that update the table without waiting on operations on associated objects.

      Forgive me if I'm speaking from ignorance of the tools.

        How do you maintain transactional integrity...

        By encapsulation, usually as a stored procedure or sometimes, when the database engine is too limited, by a subroutine in the database interface layer.

        If one person is working on an application that means that the one person needs to understand both the database and application and how they relate to one another. He or she will be responsible for deciding whether code belongs in the application layers or the database layers (stored procedures/database interface libraries).

        In a larger team, it is possible that some people would only work with application objects, others would only work only with databases, and there might be a dual skilled programmer (database and OOP) working with both teams handling the mapping between the application model and the database model.

        I realize it is attractive to think one can eliminate the need for dual knowledge and translation between models by collapsing the object architecture and the database into one. The skill and human resource requirements become much more complex if there really are two separate models.

        However, it rarely works over the long term because databases and applications have very different goals. A database's job is to maintain the integrity of persistent data for a business or research project. Databases are fundamentally conservative. Since a database is at the center of an application ecosystem, changes to data structures are very disruptive.

        By contrast, an application's job is to find ways to use that data. Applications are essentially innovative, finding ever new ways to help a business make use of its existing information resources to meet changing operational and market needs.

        One of the big take-aways of normalization/database theory is that within certain constraints we can take one data structure and morph it into another more useful form. With the help of joins and projections we can create nearly any database view or object we need. In many cases we can use the same rules to automatically convert a view back into discrete tables and rows. We lose the benefit of that insight if we insist on an artificial one-to-one relationship between objects and tables.

        How do you maintain transactional integrity in a situation where Perl objects reference multiple tables and different Perl objects might have overlapping table references? It seems to me that sometimes, you want to make sure that a number of Objects being updated result in the database tables being updated atomically and not understanding the impact on the underlying tables might lead one to believe this is being done when it's not.
        Then your encapsulation/abstraction is broke^Wsub optimal.

        Your example seems to come from a notion that still has a very tight coupling between data layout and Perl data structures.

        Conversely, you might only want to operate on a single object and have that update the table without waiting on operations on associated objects.
        "The table"? What table? Again, loosen the idea there should be a mapping between tables and objects (although you probably mean rows and objects (or tables and classes)).

        In addition to ELISHEVA's excellent post: One of the basic tasks of a database is the ability to atomically do actions in multiple tables and/or records when needed. If your database can't do that, you need to look for a different database. Most databases can also update multiple records in a table at the same time by different processes/queries, without one update getting in the way of the other. (Subject to volume, structure, and resource limitations. There are a couple of low-end databases that don't do that one, and may be useful in some situations as long as you are aware of that limitation.)

        So, yes, that would be an ignorance of the tools issue: The tools should be able to handle those situations, when used correctly.

Re^2: Maybe database tables aren't such great "objects," after all ...
by djp (Hermit) on Mar 28, 2011 at 02:22 UTC
    Spot on. +++++
Re: Maybe database tables aren't such great "objects," after all ...
by hermida (Scribe) on Apr 06, 2011 at 18:17 UTC
    There is also the common development method where you don't bother with any SQL or relational DDL at all, i.e. you don't have a preexisting database you have to work with so you can just write your domain model in the ORM syntax and it will deploy and manage the DDL and SQL for the target platform.

    There are ORMs like DBIx::Class in Perl, Hibernate in Java, SQLAlchemy in Python, etc. where you write up class files which have entities, their attributes and relationships to the other entities, i.e. the domain object model and the ORM gives you the syntax to clearly and granularly define how you want your domain model to map to the relational database and it will create the relational database based on your class definitions, you don't have to worry about the relational side much at all. More importantly you don't have to worry about any SQL when using such objects in your business logic, there is syntax provided by the ORM to allow you to define what should happen when, e.g. in one transaction or even nest transactions and you just deal with objects, the ORM nicely does the back-end hassle for you.

    Now DBIx::Class is different in many ways to Hibernate and SQLAlchemy, it doesn't follow the full OOP way that the others do and has similar syntax to for example Ruby's ActiveRecord. In Hibernate and SQLAlchemy you define real OOP classes for each of you entities and they follow the standard OOP conventions of that language for defining attributes and methods that get entity relationships. Hibernate and SQLAlchemy give you annotations/decorations that you put on top of the class definition code to tell Hibernate and SQLAlchemy how to do the relational mapping. You typically never do any SQL at all you just work in OOP land in your business logic code and the backend ORM engine manages what needs to be done on the DBMS side.

    I've mentioned possibly having this type of ORM capability for the future version of DBIx::Class, for example one could forgo the current syntax used to define your object-relational mapping and do this instead: write normal Moose class files and have them decorated/annotated with DBIx::Class syntax to define the mapping and also any specific options if you want to change default or add optional ORM behaviors.

    Now I know there is some criticism of these OOP-centric ORMs, I'm not advocating them for everything just mentioning that they can be quite appropriate for certain projects and design strategies, especially if you want to always work in OOP and not worry about SQL much. DBIx::Class for example is in my mind much more flexible at doing very difficult database mappings and operations than the OOP-centric ones, but you then forgo working with Moose objects for you entities.

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