magpiebrain

Prevayler - how not to do it

The Prevayler persistence engine for Java might be a good project. Really it might. I have qualms about the basic principle which has everything stored in memory, with robustness provided by the fact that all calls to the persistence layer are logged and can easily be reloaded. For a decent sized database driven J2EE application the amount of data can easily outstrip the maximum available memory. I don’t even have a problem with their solution which is basically to wait until you can get enough ram (although their out of date post on the subject states we should have holographic ram available to us by now!) even though this smacks of a “Don’t worry about the code, lets throw money at the hardware to sort it out” approach.
No, the thing that bothers me is the downright egotistical closed-minded nature of the developers. It doesn’t take long for any reader of their Wiki to see what I mean. The piece When Should I Not Use Prevayler for example:

When Should I Not Use Prevalence

…

When you do not know how to program.

The problem I have with this is the fact that these people with their consistently arrogant attitude have resulted in alienating a large percentage of the Java programmers out there who are now less likely to look at prevlayer seriously. As a technology for small scale apps I don’t have a problem with it. What I do have a problem with is the thought of having to deal with coders who make Mark Fleury look like the Dalai Lama when it comes to dealing with people. If you are serious about publishing and informing the public concerning what you think to be a good idea, the last thing you want to do is call everyone stupid and ignorant.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2003 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Java. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.