Using and Understanding Java Data Objects

Using and Understanding Java Data Objects
Dear Reader,
I wrote this book because I discovered that Java Data Objects (JDO), as defined by the Java Community Process, was too valuable to ignore. Because JDO defines universal persistence for Java objects, it offers many benefits to application development.
The benefits of using JDO are numerous and significant: JDO greatly reduces the amount of code needed to use a relational database. JDO is indifferent to database architectures; an application can use a relational database in one installation and a object-oriented database in another installation. JDO is a community standard with competing implementations, allowing you to avoid vendor lock-in. JDO provides transparent persistence; in other words, your code uses plain old Java objects, while the work of persistence occurs under the covers. JDO offers sophisticated cache management and transaction management. Once you get the hang of it, JDO is easy to use.
This book has two missions. The first mission is to give you a tour of Java Data Objects. During this tour, I attempt to give you the benefit of my two years' experience learning about JDO and using it to build some fairly simple, but demanding, applications. Like most tour leaders, I expect to point out much more than you really need to know. The second mission is to give you a tour of the open source JDO Learning Tools. Some of these tools poke and prod JDO so that you can learn more about its behavior. Other tools are examples of three application architectures. Separate chapters and examples cover client-server applications, Web applications, and applications using Enterprise JavaBeans.
It is my hope that this book will provide the insight and examples you need to be successful the first time you use JDO.
Happy coding,
David Ezzio