Java Database Best Practices

Book Preface

Database programming begins with the database. To build effective database applications, you need to fully appreciate the work the database does for those applications. This first section addresses the best practices in data architecture–the design of relational database elements that support database applications.

In the object-oriented world of Java development, Java objects are said to persist against a data store. In other words, the objects that make up your Java application save their data to a relational database so that data may be referenced at a later time. The approach you take to mapping your Java objects to the data store is called a persistence model .

These days, Java programmers have many persistence models from which to choose. In this section, we look at many of the most popular persistence models, including:

• EJB, both container-managed and bean-managed

• Java Data Objects

• Third-party tools such as Hibernate and Castor

• Custom persistence models