Re: [Hibernate-devel] Feature Requests

[Paul S. <pau...@ne...>]

Daniel Bradby wrote:
> We've had some good response to the latest publicity and are getting
> some great requests for features. I've added them to the feature request
> 
> part of the sourceforge project and would like ppl to feel free to
> comment on them if they feel the need.
> 
> I think at this stage of the project that would be a good place for ppl
> to let us know of things they need or can see needing improvement. It
> would also be a good place to discuss how this could be done and maybe
> even assign ppl to the task. Just so we are all thinking the same way.
> 
> So go check it out and keep sending in more requests.
> 
> Daniel

I started typing this as a comment in the request forum, but decided it 
probably didn't really belong there.

In response to the "Lazy Initialization of Objects" request, some comments:

Not trivial. Approaches that I know of:
- pre/post processing to insert code that manages this
- use of interfaces and proxies
- provide an API and let the coder do it.

IMO the first approach is the toughest, but the only true "transparent" 
persistence from the programmers point of view. I'd choose post- over 
pre-processing given a choice (I've used both).

The other two choices put some burden back on the developer, the third 
choice more so although it doesn't require polluting your model with 
otherwise unnecessary interfaces. But both fit in with the idea that 
"simple stuff is easy, and hard stuff is possible".

I don't know that they'd be mutually exlcusive either, so you might 
choose to gradually introduce this. For example build the API first and 
test it. Then do the interface/proxy thing, which might use this API 
anyway. Then finally hack around with post-processing, which would use 
all the tricks you'd developed doing the other two.

PaulS :)