# The pain of full-stack ORM

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [September 19, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265 "2006-09-19T20:44:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brianj)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265/1 "2006-09-19T20:44:53Z")

</div>

I work in a nice little support/development/data-center shop which is  
split down the middle in regards to application development. On the  
one side we have our Java team and a massive Oracle system, and on the  
other side we currently have our PHP team which ties into the same  
massive Oracle system. The difference between the teams could be  
defined as “long term projects” vs. “agile development”.

I was given permission to prototype Rails as a replacement for our out  
of hand PHP system, and I came this close |…| to being in the clear  
and happily coding with Rails at the enterprise level. The problem?  
ActiveRecord doesn’t fit our Multiple Table Inheritance model which is  
very deeply integrated into our collective database structure. While I  
would love to do things the Rails way, I don’t think I will convince  
anyone to rewrite huge Oracle database systems anytime soon.

The alternatives? I love Ruby, and I enjoy Rails. Rolling my own ORM  
layer, or bending ActiveRecord is out of the question at the moment.  
Part of the point of all this is to introduce a well supported system  
to the shop from a…z. Sadly I’ve begun looking towards other  
frameworks/languages that give me a little more flexibility at  
selecting components (specifically ORM), and it looks like the worst  
case scenario is that we turn into a 100% Java shop. I’m not against  
Java, but if I have alternatives I’ll jump to those first.

If anyone has suggestions I am completely open to them. Remaining in a  
Rails environment is obviously ideal, it really does make application  
development enjoyable.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brianj)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265/2 "2006-09-19T23:01:12Z")

</div>

On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 06:40:59PM -0000, Brian J. wrote:  
}  
} I work in a nice little support/development/data-center shop which is  
} split down the middle in regards to application development. On the  
} one side we have our Java team and a massive Oracle system, and on the  
} other side we currently have our PHP team which ties into the same  
} massive Oracle system. The difference between the teams could be  
} defined as “long term projects” vs. “agile development”.  
}  
} I was given permission to prototype Rails as a replacement for our out  
} of hand PHP system, and I came this close |…| to being in the clear  
} and happily coding with Rails at the enterprise level. The problem?  
} ActiveRecord doesn’t fit our Multiple Table Inheritance model which is  
} very deeply integrated into our collective database structure. While  
I  
} would love to do things the Rails way, I don’t think I will convince  
} anyone to rewrite huge Oracle database systems anytime soon.  
}  
} The alternatives? I love Ruby, and I enjoy Rails. Rolling my own ORM  
} layer, or bending ActiveRecord is out of the question at the moment.  
} Part of the point of all this is to introduce a well supported system  
} to the shop from a…z. Sadly I’ve begun looking towards other  
} frameworks/languages that give me a little more flexibility at  
} selecting components (specifically ORM), and it looks like the worst  
} case scenario is that we turn into a 100% Java shop. I’m not against  
} Java, but if I have alternatives I’ll jump to those first.  
}  
} If anyone has suggestions I am completely open to them. Remaining in  
a  
} Rails environment is obviously ideal, it really does make application  
} development enjoyable.

There is a strong chance that you can deal with this using a combination  
of  
Single Table Inheritance and Polymorphic Associations. Google for them  
(and Rails) and you should find what you need.

–Greg

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brianj)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265/3 "2006-09-21T02:50:20Z")

</div>

On Sep 19, 2006, at 1:57 PM, Gregory S. wrote:

> } defined as “long term projects” vs. “agile development”.  
> } would love to do things the Rails way, I don’t think I will convince  
> } anyone to rewrite huge Oracle database systems anytime soon.  
> …  
> There is a strong chance that you can deal with this using a  
> combination of  
> Single Table Inheritance and Polymorphic Associations. Google for them  
> (and Rails) and you should find what you need.
> 
> –Greg

Have you consider adding Rails-friendly views to your Oracle  
database? You may be able to provide unified viesw to the troublesome  
tables that will work with STI. Database views are one of the main  
tools for using Rails in the enterprise. Of course, it can be  
politically difficult to use them.

Scott

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brianj)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265/4 "2006-09-21T03:14:21Z")

</div>

Scott W. wrote:

> Have you consider adding Rails-friendly views to your Oracle  
> database? You may be able to provide unified viesw to the troublesome  
> tables that will work with STI. Database views are one of the main  
> tools for using Rails in the enterprise. Of course, it can be  
> politically difficult to use them.
> 
> Scott

While there are already Rails friendly views in place, they are only  
handy for reading data. Writing out to a 2 - 5+ table hierarchy is  
impossible with ActiveRecord as far as I can tell, although correct me  
if I am wrong.

Today I managed to build a Rails Way solution, although it get’s a  
little tricky as the table depth increases. It’s also a little harder  
to deal with, since you don’t just do something like  
“object.column\_name” (which would be ideal), but could be doing  
“object.next\_object.column\_name”, etc.

However, this is proving to be satisfactory at some level since it  
keeps me in the Rails development business. I can post how I am doing  
this while still maintaining some semblance of vertical table  
inheritance if anyone is interested.

Brian

Brian

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brianj)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2006, 4:42am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265/5 "2006-09-21T04:42:26Z")

</div>

On Sep 20, 2006, at 6:11 PM, Brian J. wrote:

> handy for reading data. Writing out to a 2 - 5+ table hierarchy is  
> keeps me in the Rails development business. I can post how I am doing  
> this while still maintaining some semblance of vertical table  
> inheritance if anyone is interested.
> 
> Brian

Sure, I’d be interested. Why can’t you update via the views as well?  
Are there limitations in Oracle updateable views, is it the schema,  
or just a mismatch with ActiveRecord’s conventions?

This is just curiosity – my enterprise database is an un-normalized,  
no-referential-integrity pile of data.

Scott

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brianj)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 11:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265/6 "2006-09-22T23:52:36Z")

</div>

On Sep 22, 2006, at 1:32 PM, Brian J. wrote:

> has\_one :work, :foreign\_key =\> ‘id’  
> def after\_initialize  
> has\_one :work, :foreign\_key =\> ‘id’
> 
> #####################  
> )  
> @work.save  
> Key points to note:
> 
> Brian J.

Ugh. Thanks for the detail. Always a bit harder in practice than it  
appears from the “Enterprise Rub” talk at some conference, isn’t it?  
It seems like you are on the road to modeling your database using  
delegation, which is probably the way Rails “sees” the database.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brianj)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 10:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265/7 "2006-09-22T22:40:29Z")

</div>

Scott W. wrote:

> Sure, I’d be interested. Why can’t you update via the views as well?  
> Are there limitations in Oracle updateable views, is it the schema,  
> or just a mismatch with ActiveRecord’s conventions?
> 
> This is just curiosity – my enterprise database is an un-normalized,  
> no-referential-integrity pile of data.
> 
> Scott

When joining one or more tables in Oracle, it turns the view into  
read-only by default. There are ways to create updateable views,  
however it requires some database level magic to make it work. I guess  
in the end the limitation is due to the schema design in general.

The following is my kind of “Rails Way” work around. I admit that  
there are still some kinks I am working out, but it does seem to behave  
as I would like it to.

#####################

# The models:

#####################  
class Work \< ActiveRecord::Base  
set\_table\_name “work”  
set\_sequence\_name “core\_work\_mgmt.seq\_work”  
end

class StatusableWork \< ActiveRecord::Base # extends Work  
set\_table\_name “statusable\_work”  
has\_one :work, :foreign\_key =\> ‘id’

def before\_create  
self.work.save  
self.id = self.work.id  
end

def before\_update  
self.work.save  
end

def after\_initialize  
if self.id.nil?  
self.work = Work.new  
end  
end

end

class CnsProject \< ActiveRecord::Base # extends StatusableWork  
set\_table\_name “cns\_project”  
has\_one :statusable\_work, :foreign\_key =\> ‘id’  
has\_one :work, :foreign\_key =\> ‘id’

def before\_create  
self.statusable\_work.save  
self.id = self.statusable\_work.id  
end

def before\_update  
self.statusable\_work.save  
self.work.save  
end

def after\_initialize  
if self.id.nil?  
self.statusable\_work = StatusableWork.new  
end  
end

end

#####################

# Some Controller Logic:

#####################

```
# Note that uncommenting the :include allows me to query using
# stuff like: work.column_name = ?, statusable_work.column_name = ?
def index
  @work = CnsProject.find(
    :all,
    #:include => [:work, :statusable_work],
    :conditions => ["project_number = ?", 12345],
    :limit => 10
   )
end

def update
  @work = CnsProject.find(
    :first,
    :include => [:work],
    :conditions => ["work.name = ? AND project_number = ?",

```

“Serious Work”, 12345]  
)  
@work.statusable\_work.work.name = “Not so Serious Work”  
@work.save

```
   redirect_to :action => "index"
end

```

There still seems to be some flaws (like object reference during  
updates), but this is about as close as I can get it the “Rails Way”  
and make it behave almost like our Java/PHP models. The difference is  
that the column/methods aren’t all referenced at the object level, and  
saving stuff out correctly requires a little more complicated logic.

Key points to note:

- Since Work holds the sequence, and all id’s in each table must  
reflect the number Work generates, we have to save a Work object out  
first, then a StatusableWork, then a CnsProject, each setting their id  
from the ‘parent’ object id.
- When instantiating a new ‘subclass’, it needs to initialize an  
instance of it’s parent class so that those methods can be referenced.

That’s pretty much where I stand right now. I’m open to any more  
suggestions and ideas that anyone may have.

Brian J.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/54ee81/32.png) [@brianj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brianj)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 10:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/the-pain-of-full-stack-orm/69265/8 "2006-09-24T10:16:56Z")

</div>

I guess you could always look at Rbatis…

> **[iBATIS Home](https://ibatis.apache.org/)**
>
> iBATIS Data Mapping Framework for Java and .NET

I have personally never used it but I do use IBatis for my Java  
projects.

Its a bit less “automatic” than Activerecord but may be a better fit.

Serge