Lightweight persistence in the browser and the client

A very nice article by Josh Marinacci about how to get some simple persistence on the client side, using the new Java Persistence API.

By the “client side,” in this article Josh means Java clients, not browser clients. I have been thinking about what it would mean to get Java Persistence into a browser (assuming that the app developer wants to work in JavaScript, not Java). I wonder if Java Persistence really helps, because what you really want is something native to JavaScript. Well, now what does that mean? JavaScript is a dynamic language. Object types can and do change dynamically. So how do you map a JavaScript object into a database table? Hmm... Something I'm going to go look into.

By the way, Josh uses Hibernate and HSQL in his example. But Hibernate could be replaced by any lightweight Java Persistence implemetation, and HSQL could easily be replaced by Java DB (shameless plug). People regularly ask me why would they want to use Java DB instead of HSQL, and my answers consistently are: with Java DB you get full recoverability and database consistency even in multi-client/multi-threaded applications, you get support from a large established company, and you get a very robust developer community. These may not be important to you, but they are important to a lot of folks, and that's why I think Java DB has value.

Silly database joke: database developers are robust, consistent, and durable, but they can also be very isolated. Need a hint? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID