Monday 13 December 2010

CascadeType Explained

PERSIST
maps to EnityManager.persist(). Make an instance managed and persistent.
MERGE
maps to EnityManager.merge(). Merge the state of the given entity into the current persistence context.
REMOVE
maps to EnityManager.remove(). Remove the entity instance.
REFRESH
maps to EnityManager.refresh(). Refresh the state of the instance from the database, overwriting changes made to the entity, if any.
ALL
all of the above

References



Java Persistence with Hibernate
Christian Bauer, Gavin King

Friday 10 December 2010

What is the biggest source of bugs in Software?

Riddle:What is the biggest source of bugs in Software?

Solution: Software Designers

Thursday 9 December 2010

Composite Primary Keys

Besides Java, I do have a lot to do, as do we all, I presume, with Database and Database Administration and Database Design.

In my current job, I see a lot of code where a join table has a single column, an autogenerated id, for a Primary Key. And it's really annoying.

Due to lack of proper unique indexes, there are a lot of duplicate records in the table, only they're not duplicate because they have a unique Primary Key (an autogenerated id).

If the table is a perfect example of a way of joining two tables together, there is no reason not to have a combined Primary Key consisting of the two foreign keys used to join the other two tables together.

Example:

Table:
User
id
Table:
Widget
id

Bad Example:

Join Table:
User_Widget
id
user_id
widget_id

Good Example:

Join Table:
User_Widget
user_id
widget_id

In the good example, the constraints of the Primary Key take care of everything, it's quicker, it's more efficient, and it's always correct.

Friday 3 December 2010

Yahoo Web Best Practices

One of the most enlightening articles I've read in a long time, regarding the responsiveness (and the way to increase it) of websites. http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#page-nav