[Event] Berlin / March: Object Database Conference

Let me wish you a happy new year and welcome this year with a little announcement:

On 13+14th March there will be an Object Database Conference in Berlin.

Some facts, before I explain why this is important for Software-Engineering and not only for the Database / Persistence area.

A) The conference is split into a Science Day (13th March / Thursday) and an Application Day (14th March / Friday). There will be peer reviewed talks and papers on 13th and many practical talks on Friday.

B) The conference already has joined up an impressive line of (keynote) speakers. To name a few: Christof Wittig (db4objects), Robert Greene (Versant), Leon Gudzenda Objectivity), Mike Card (OMG), Roberto Zicari (odbms.org), Carsten Czarski (Oracle), Rald Westphal (.NET Expert), Carl Rosenberger (db4objects Chief Architect), ...

C) There will be a lot of hot topics as Standardization (OMG), Spring, Eclipse, Android, and more. All connected to object databases.

D) Talks and Papers are still welcome. Please tell your colleagues about the conference link http://icoodb.org

E) And finally Berlin is always worth a trip, the conference itself does not have the normal exaggerated prices and hence is quite affordable.

So you might think: Well I am in love with MySQL / Hibernate and I have understood the relational data model. That's pretty perfect and you might have a wonderful solution at hand that suites pretty well in most cases.

But as an advanced Software-Engineer you should consider the following:

1. You should know the entire persistence space. Are XML Databases as Tamino, eXist, or Xinidce important? Yes they are! Are Object Databases important to fit perfectly in specific areas? Believe me: they are, they do. The conference will help to clarify this and lets you play the entire persistence keyboard.
2. Did you know that some of the largest and fastest databases are run on ODBMS (Obejct Database Management Systems)? Did you know that on the other hand embedded object databases can be found everywhere? And did you know there is a smarter and mostly faster database on Google Android then SQLite?
3. And for the Software-Engineers reading this:
   

Even if you are plan to run a monster big and relational database you can benefit from Object Databases (ODBMS):

a) Add a simple Object Cache to your application using ODBMS. It's really trivial.

b) Are you building a prototype first where the persistence layer comes later? Simply add a DAO Layer that saves ANY object (even the deepest) with only 2 lines of code any nothing more to do! Later when your relational persistence comes, you can easily switch to the EJB 3 / JPA / Hibernate Layer if needed. But till then your persistence layer simply works even simpler then with these 'cool' class annotations.

c) You need to test your Business Code? You use Mock-Objects generated by jMock, asyMock or *Mock? You sometimes want to write a mock without the database connection? Use an object databases plugged in your mock to provide your mock with arbitrary domain objects to test with.

To conclude: We hope that these examples gave you lots of arguments to join the ICOODB.org conference, spread the word about ICOODB.org or get in touch with us.

Any questions? Please write a comment here or get in touch with us:
info[at]icoodb[dot]org

And perhaps CU in Berlin!