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Not trying to be contradictive here (maybe a little bit) or rain on anyones parade, but I’ve been hearing and seeing loads of fuss from people who are “just waiting” for ColdFusion 9 ORM to be released, or some people who have projects where ColdFusion 9 ORM “would suit just perfectly”.
Whilst I find it to be perfectly normal and very exciting, I can also predict some deception is to come.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to everybody, but to some people who are expecting too much of it. When I say expecting too much of it, I mean people who think it will be a life saver, and everything that is ugly will become pretty.
ORM is no big news for us ColdFusion developers, as we’ve been using it for a while with Reactor and Transfer. But I still feel the need of explaining a few things in here to avoid people being mislead by the hype that is to come.
On a side note, I think it’s necessary to state that ColdFusion ORM will not write code for you (although it will save you many hours witting it), and it will not make your ugly “Select *” on the database any uglier or prettier than they are.
A few weeks ago, Terry Ryan from Adobe made a blog post stating that DBA’s are still necessary, and to be very honest, I think they will be necessary now more than they have ever been.
Also, we need to realize that ColdFusion 9 ORM will be powered by Hibernate, which is a pretty serious and very well tested ORM. It’s great news, as we are inheriting years of hard work on it, but it’s also worth mentioning that Hibernate can be dangerous if not properly handled.
“Tell me something new Marcos, it’s like that with everything”
You’re probably right, but I can already see lots of “bad” things being released in the very beginning, as some people will misjudge and probably misuse the ORM features only to stay afloat and be part of the “cool kids on the block” who use ORM powered applications.
We can’t forget about the KISS principle that has always been present in the ColdFusion life.
You might think I’m exagerating here, but from what I’ve been seeing, people could be very wrong (and precipitated) about the whole concept. Obviouly when things go wrong, they will blame on the technology, instead of blaming themselves for not planning ahead, and getting necessary education on what ORM really is.
One of the main gaps I can see here, is the lack of knowlewdge most of us have when it comes to Hibernate. I’ve been reading some stuff about it for a while, and can tell it’s pretty cool stuff, but the learning curve is a bit steep, and while you can probably have something up and running after a few hours of research and reading, you never know if that’s the right way to do it. In that sense, you could easily end up with the biggest overkill ever, when your project is the most up-to-date as it could go, but it’s simply not functional. Raise your hands if this doesn’t sound familiar.
I would like to hear some other people’s opinions on that matters, in regards to experiences. and if my gut feeling make sense only for me.
The ORM will not write the code for your but the CF Builder will! I saw it in action at the recent Adobe Road Show and it was simply amazing, and very easy to customize and extend. There is basically an ORM wizard which you will be able to use which will generate all the necessary cfcs to start using the technology immediately. If you don’t like the code it generates, you can open the wizard config files and make it do what you want. I’m sold!
I think your right in the sense that a new POWERFUL feature comes along (As it did with CFC’s) and people have their own ideas on how to use them and some will hit the nail on the head. Some will sort of get it and use the best parts and others will make a pigs ear of it and as you said blame the technology rather then their implementation or understanding.
But lets hope that by putting things in the CF Tag stack it takes the complex and thus hopefully bad things away.
But Education is key here and something that Adobe have to get right at the launch of CF9 ORM and give best practive do’s and don’ts to help people on the right track.
Nice thought provoking post there Marcos
It is true that Hibernate can be complex. This is certainly not something that beginners should attempt to work with – especially with complex domain models. Any developer planning on using the Hibernate functionality in CF9 needs to be well versed in Hibernate – and understand how to map the complex relationships that exist in many domain models. ColdFusion does make it easy (certainly easier than creating a Java + Spring + Hibernate application) – but, any full featured ORM will have many complexities that will need to be understood.
I would recommend that any developer who wants to learn about Hibernate read “Java Persistence with Hibernate” – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1932394885?tag=davidtunet-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=1932394885&adid=0W759CEQSCAJMMCYXP4M&
@Chris: That sure is a good idea Chris. Maybe it could be controlled from the sandbox security. the same way you control things like cfexecute and cffile.
There is a certain benefit, and lately I’ve been seeing people using it more and more. it sure is nice to be able to use something the “cool kids on the block” use. But again, it has to be used with responsibility.
@Seth: It will up to certain extent. I’ve been using it (now I can say), and it will generate only minimal stuff. Also, I don’t trust IDE code generators (remember Dreamweaver?).
@Big Mad Kev: it sure would be a great thing if Adobe provided some education to it. one of the things about the ColdFusion community, is that it really rocks, and in some cases, even not having had any education with it, it’s going really fast paced, and there’s loads of people really nailing it now.
@David: I’ll take a look at the book. thanks
I’ve asked for it to be a optional feature as I see the benefit, but not for everyone.
Small apps, or small traffic apps really don’t need it and there are alternatives that are also used for other apps.
Allow me to turn it off in the admin and I’m happy.