Re: Object .vs. Relational

From my limited use of Oracle's OO functionality, it does not appear to have the level of support that relational has.

Examples:

You don't have as much flexibility when altering OO structures after they are created. Once you have dependencies, you often have to drop everything and start over. A method that I have foud useful is to use standard relational structures, and then build OO views on top of them (although you may have to write some update trigger code).

OO doesn't seem to be fully supported in all tools, such as relication.

JDBC (and probably OCI/Pro*C) access to OO structures is more complicated and non-standard.

OO *does* appear to be required to use Oracle's XML tools for working with nested and complex structures. (OO views work OK here).

-Peter

Matthew Fuller wrote:
>
> I did some searching on the board for this subject and only found old
> messages with few responses. I'm hoping there's some more enlightened
> folks out there now.
>
> Does anyone have any input on Object .vs. Relational database structure
> in Oracle? Code being developed in our shop is OO (Java). Current
> database architecture is "Object Relational" as we are using that
> methodology along with the Spatial Data Option. Am considering
> migrating to a fully object model.
>
> After digging through documentation I have the following perceptions
> (please correct or confirm):
> - Performance will not be "too" much different. It would seem that
> Oracle is storing Object tables similar to relational tables (both
> have "rowids", both can be indexed, etc.). I have to believe that the
> way Oracle really physically stores and accesses the data is not that
> much different after you get past the different coding techniques.
> - Design/Development may be faster, and should at least be more
> cohesive since both code and DB are in the same methodology.
> - Learning curve for DBAs and Admins that are strictly "relational"
> will have to be overcome, but this should be reasonably easy for my
> group.
>
> Am I missing anything?
>
> TIA.
>
> Matt.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
Received on Tue Nov 07 2000 - 08:27:43 CST