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Object Oriented Database - why most of the companies do not use them

I am pretty new to programming(just finished University).

I have been thought in the last 4 years about Object Oriented development and the numerous advantages of this approach.

My question is

Isn't it easier to use a pure Object Oriented database in development applications?

Why Object Oriented database are not as much diffuse as relational?

From my point of view makes sense to use OO database, the latter will avoid the numerous construction necessary for the mapping of complex objects on the tables.

Solution

  • Having worked for an Object Oriented Database company in the past (www.objectstore.com) - and currently - I think I have a fair insight on what makes them great, and what makes them no-so-great.

    Great:

    No object-relational mismatch. If you want to store object x in memory to a persistent store, ObjectStore can do it with near-realtime guarantees. Our product has been used by many companies to meet brutal time requirements that would be tough with relation databases or ORM engines.

    No object-relational mismatch - you develop in objects, you think in objects, you store in objects.

    No-so-great:

    ORM: Object relational managers have pretty much made Object databases irrelevant

    Schema evolution: Change a class to add a field, and now you have to morph an ENTIRE database. ObjectStore has gotten smarter about this over the years, but it's still a pain point for many OODBMS.

    Bad:

    Tool support - this is what made OODBMS a non-starter for most places. Everyone today can take Crystal Reports or Access or Excel and churn out bucketloads of reports. With an OODBMS, you would have to build this logic through a programmer, and we all know how fast that's likely to happen when you need your budget report to take into account some xyz parameter that you didn't think of at design time.

    Tools are why OODBMS failed in the marketplace. Not technical superiority or performance or language support (ObjectStore supports C++/Java/.Net and had support for COM to support any IDispatch languages like VB, Perl, etc.).

    So I've said some disparaging things here, particularly about a product I really like. But ObjectStore is awesome at very specific tasks, but a poor choice for building a webapp. Though at one point, it was driving the inventory management backend for Amazon.com.