Re: ADC Core Data article

FROM : James Duncan Davidson
DATE : Wed Apr 06 03:01:48 2005

On Apr 5, 2005, at 17:31 , Jake Macmullin wrote:

> However, other O/R frameworks allow you to persist 'plain old' 
> objects. For example, Hibernate allows you to persist 'plain old 
> Java objects' - so I'm not sure it is asking too much for an O/R 
> framework which doesn't require that all persisted classes inherit 
> from a common parent (other than object). Although perhaps some of 
> Core Data's features such as the handling of 'undo and redo' would 
> make this idea more difficult.


Core Data isn't just about persistence though. Persistence is only 
half of Core Data's description as an "object graph management and 
persistence framework". If Core Data were just about persistence and 
reanimation, then an object's ability to be serialized would be about 
all you needed. But it's that "object-graph management" part that 
makes it really interesting. And what probably requires the added 
ooomph of a parent class other than NSObject.

Also, I don't believe that Core Data is an O/R framework like 
Hibernate et al are.  I think it's easy to jump to the conclusion 
that Core Data is about O/R because one of its three data store types 
is SQLite and it borrows several concepts from the database world. 
But, I think that to view it in just O/R terms would be to sell it 
short.

Of course, we'll have to wait until Tiger ships in order to see for 
sure.

duncan