What's Wrong With ORM

[Nigel Hamilton]

Why do we even have an ORM problem?

It seems like eons ago that programmers suffered from limited diskspace 
... back then normalisation was required to break things into multiple 
'related' tables to avoid data being repeated. Thanks also to the tyranny 
of disk seek times and the need for indices the relational model was born 
along with the database management systems to police it.

But things are moving on - we've got lots of disk and tons of RAM. Who 
needs tight 70 pants when you can hang loose? ;-)

Hmmmm ... what about the database you're working on as the moment? How 
much of the data is actually/really/truly used? Imagine if your ORM thing 
could just deal with the "interesting bits" - the stuff people actually 
use - couldn't it all stay in RAM?

The relational model is pretty optimal for sending data to/from disk ... 
but what about RAM? ... here is where the ORM thing can/should manage the 
"interesting bits" - we've now got the computing + network power to devise 
something on top of the relational model ... an interaction model?

Just an idea ...

Nige

p.s. I actually really like RDBMSs and can't imagine a world without them 
... but it's Friday afternoon ...

p.p.s. I also really like the idea someone suggested before on this list 
about having one uber many-many table that covers all the relations in a 
database. A kind of huge relational spine for all objects to hang off. A 
new-wave ORM system could generate this spine based on meta details etc 
and use this to access the data etc.