Hi,

I have a highly normalized schema like

all type of objects are kept in one OBJECT table.
all attrbutes of object are kept in one ATTRIBUTE table.
all relation among objects are kept in one RELATION table.
There are some supporting table for type lookup.

I need to expose them into a web application, allow user to use form to update/retrieve info.

Here is what I plan to do:

for each table, create a javabeans and use hibernate for OR mapping. sort like entity layer.
to facilitate web presentation, plan to create a hierarchy of java classes (for all objects) and have all attributes defined as instance variables. Sort like view helper.

So, my questions are:

1. Is this a good strategy? Is there any performance issue?

2. What's the best strategy to synchronize between entity and view helper? Looks like apache commons beanutil would need to play here.

3. How to avoid cyclic retrieval/update in view helper?

e.g. an object has a collection of relations, a relation will have 2 objects at each end, etc.

4. is there any existing pattern for this case?

Help will be much appreciated.

wolverine

As they say, any design problem can be solved by adding an extra level of indirections. Also any performance problem can be solved by removing a level of indirection. I think that your approach may be erring too much on the side of generality, by 2-3 levels.

Sorry for not being able to provide more specific information. I know of other projects that took this very generalized path and struggled with performance issues for a long while.

Good luck,

Marius