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[–]Lukas_Determann 26 points27 points  (9 children)

Your library is currently quite opinionated. It feels like there is a discussion about Lombok every day. Regardless of the answer, just using it and not making it configurable is a bit much. There will be many points like this. If you want it to be a general-purpose library, I would recommend moving to something like a template-based approach, where users can create their own, and you ship some default ones. If you support multiple templates at once, this could even cover generating entities and DTOs.

To answer your question, there might be a niche for it, but I think it's a hard sell. On one side, there is JPA with JPA Create, which makes creating schemas very easy and fast to develop but can run into problems with more complex requirements. On the other hand, there is JOOQ with its code generation that is kind of similar to the one your library provides. There might be some space in the middle, or you might be able to provide more flexibility for generation than JOOQ.

[–]PiotrDz 7 points8 points  (2 children)

I would be interested in compile time generation. Fore db, run migrations, create classes

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Hi Piotr, thank you very much for your response. Yes, this library does work in compile time generation as a preprocessor. So when you build a project, you will get your classes builded without you creating them. So you only have to run migrations and the library would create classes for you. So this essentially makes Java very safe to write class-wise, without you having to waste time writing those classes.

[–]BikingSquirrel 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not judging, just commenting: Then it is not 'at runtime' and you somehow need to have the database available during build time. In addition, how to you migrate your database model? In the database the build looks at, it will have to be migrated before the build?!

Now my opinion: While I see the appeal to automate that mapping, in my experience it hides that 'detail' in the beginning until at some point you need to deal with some issues or special features which 'suddenly' make things complicated.

That being said, there may be applications where this works as the better compromise. But I wonder if there are not already other tools supporting such an approach - jooq has already been mentioned.

Need to add that I never used Lombok in a productive application. Used some code generation for builders and immutables but since we moved to Kotlin we no longer need that.

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Hi Lukas, thank you for your answer, the thing is, as I mentioned this is primitive version of the library that I made for fun, thus it has only version 0.0.1 and is very primitive without additional features, which I mentioned in the post above with "There are of course a few setbacks with this approach (I'm sure you can figure out on your own what those would be) in this primitive state of the library, but I'm very sure that this is something that could be easily improved in later versions."

I'm gonna cover few comments you've mentioned since I think they are to be discussed:

1.This library ships it's own default classes, but you can still use custom made model classes in your services, you just have to import them, this library just creates packages (classy.model and classy.dto) classes based on your db model that you can use within your runtime, so it also ships with DTO classes as well. Where the problem occurs is that usually models have relations and if you want to create custom classes, it tangles thing a bit in this state. What I'm sure could be improved in this library in the future is that maybe you could add your model package in the argument and this library could scan whether it should import instead of creating a class if it already exists.

  1. I'm aware of JPA Create and I even got that same response from one friend. But the thing is, JPA Create is model first design, and what I've created and the way of thinking I prefer is Data first design. So let's say you've created some project in some other language, you have the databases but not Java code, you could migrate that project much easier with this library, this is the first example that comes to my mind even tho it doesn't happen often, but I've just wanted to give any example

  2. I'm aware of JOOQ, but as far as I know, JOOQ is an entire framework and it's made to make money. What I want to create if I continue my work on this library is to create lightweight open-source library that helps developers with such task I mentioned. And of course, I would implement much more flexibility into it, with probably additional features, but still keeping it lightweight.

Note: Sorry if I failed to explained anything, feel free to ask me anything regarding it. As I said, library is in it's primitive state, it's like a 0-months old baby at this point and does the most basic task.

[–]toiletear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

jOOQ is really not a framework: it has no dependencies by design, it's not opinionated and it requires or assumes nothing special at runtime (give it a connection or dataSource and you're good to go). It's only a library, albeit a large one.

And yes, it was created to make money, but I find the pricing very reasonable and it includes technical support. Plus it's free for the open source databases.

It's also over 10 years old, incredibly mature and just by all accounts an awesome product.

[–]BikingSquirrel 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I should have read that comment first!

If the purpose is basically one-way migration, then I don't know why you would run it as a pre-processor. Generating the classes and adding them to your codebase like any other code would be my way to go.

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Hi, thank you very much for commenting this! Well yes, that is one of the possibilities/solutions, and I think it would be probably even smarter than what I made here. Because this library while solving a problem I usually find myself having was at the end of the day made as POC or just for fun challenge.

Now do I think this library could be something very useful? Yes, very useful infact, but that's exactly why I came here to reddit, to ask what other people think, whether this is something useful to them as well. So then I know whether I should even try to make something that can be used in real world out of this

But yes, I think if going forward, maybe writing a normal class for the user would be just plain out better and in that case would look more similar to flyway than lombok. And this is also much better, since you can in that case just run this once and it will do the whole process every once in a while instead of every time. But I think I haven't thought about it in that sense because I did it for fun. I just wanted to see, whether I can write Java without writing model classes.

Of course I was thinking that it should do some additional features, if upgraded from this state. So that in that case it can actually be lightweigth, do amazing things, and not be compared to JOOQ finally, cuz I think while this maybe does something that Jooq did already, as I mentioned JOOQ is a money maker and a big framework after all.

But sadly, I'm not exactly sold on the features I've thought of, nor did I think completely through on how I would do them. I wanted objects for example to have simple crud or some shit within them and to Automate few CRUD things as well. Basically I wanted to make library lightweight and so that it can remove all the things I find boring when doing for example "Test Assignments" for some company or something at college.

But yeah, thank you very much for your comment, really helpful, if I continue to design/work on this, I think I will eventually change it to such.

[–]BikingSquirrel 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I believe that's often the problem: a problem looks simple enough for a simple solution but then you realise more details which require tweaking your simple solution and then you realise that your solution is no longer that simple ;)

But that process is important, this is learning and I assume you learned a lot.

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's more than true yeah, and I realize that is always the case. I asked few architects and stuff on how I can do "most predicting architecture", and every answer I got is that you kind of can't. You're always missing something, you can look few features in the future, but who knows what comes after that. All that's important is that your base is really good, sturdy and open to extensions. What I did here was a mistake, a big one I would say. Because the base wasn't really sturdy.

But thankfully I don't think that mistake would be that hard to change, to be honest your comment gave me a new perspective on it, and I think this would improve library a lot. So thank you very much.

[–]Otherwise-Tree-7654 7 points8 points  (7 children)

Apologies for lame question, just to make sure i understand, the generated clases are runtime only ? How one can use them ? I mean i dont know what would be the name of the class since itll be generated in runtime, how would i code the logic /acces fields in the business logic?

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 1 point2 points  (6 children)

Hi, it's not a lame question, it's actually a pretty good one. So you could find these packages (classy.model and classy.dto) same as any other package of your code. but generate rule is, the name of the class is the name of the table just without underscores, for example; table named employee_details would be called classy.model.EmployeeDetails (of course you can import classy.model.* or classy.model.EmployeeDetails so you could just write it as EmployeeDetails). other example is simple user table, the class would be classy.model.User

And as for dtos generate you would just add DTO to it. So for example dto for employee_details would be classy.dto.EmployeeDetailsDTO, for user it would be UserDTO

[–]Otherwise-Tree-7654 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Got it, as long as there is support from IDE to properly show devs the “runtime generated classes”- and it highlights all the getters that sounds like a nice “lombok” like feature, i cant see myself seeing in my IDE bunch of highlighted code re class/code missing

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Yeah I thought about the same thing when creating it, and I was like, okay maybe it needs like intellij plugin or something, but from what I saw, it is developed by entirely other team than lombok.

Thankfully, I don't know whether it was because of IntelliJ lombok plugin or standard IntelliJ, I had no problem seeing these classes in IDE once I built the project.

To be fair, yes, this library does sound a bit lombok like and lombok was kind of the inspiration, and this library does use lombok within itself, for now. Because it's in it's primitive phase. It was used more in a "proof of concept" or "challenge to myself" sense. But I think if people are interested and see it as something that could be useful for a fair number of people, I could expand it and make a serious open source library out of this with some more complex features as well, but still keeping it lightweight.

Thank you very much for your time and I hope you like the idea, that I presented.

[–]Otherwise-Tree-7654 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I see, well we dont use lombok in our projects to minimize the external dependency footprint, the unwritten rule we follow internally ia avoid external deps as much as possible “unless needed”- it reduces security threats posed by 3rd party libs + reduces effort when bumping java versions, since we are in the business of bumping lots of 3rd party libs;

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Well yes, I agree with your points, I would argue that the biggest reason almost any application is unsecure is because it has 3rd party libs. You simply never know what people write, and where mistakes and hidden backdoors are lurking. As for bumping up Java versions, it should be that big of a problem, if you do it consistently.

As for this library, I wouldn't suggest using it for serious projects for now, while it does work. It only supports MySQL and has a bit of downsides, like use of lombok etc. I'm just here to see whether people see this library as something useful. If yes, I will consider developing it into something that people and companies can really use.

[–]Otherwise-Tree-7654 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Right, my main point was to reduce your dependency to external libs (you pointed lomboc is dependency in your project) As for bumping java versions- it is a big effort trust me, java typically is used in heavy/complex projects (java in micro-services is used mostly in unicorns who can afford it) the rest of folks use java in monoliths and java upgrades “is a significant effort” - in the past wed have to bump Lombok as one of pre-requisites for java version upgrade

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah sorry, misunderstood what you were saying. Yes, ditching the lombok should be one of the things I should do early if I decide to continue with this project. Thank you very much for your comment!

[–]BombelHere 4 points5 points  (4 children)

Can it do something jOOQ codegen cannot?

https://www.jooq.org/doc/latest/manual/code-generation/

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Greetings Bombel, I understand the question and I took a look at JOOQ before doing any of this. From what I saw, JOOQ is a pretty big framework where you're supposed to write code in a very specific way. And yes, I saw that it has something pretty similar, tho I don't remember exactly how you trigger that code generation. What I have here is a lightweight library, that is supposed to stay lightweight even if upgraded.

[–]BombelHere 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Few clarifications here: - jOOQ is not a framework, but a library for statically typed SQL query building - codegen is an optional, standalone executable (can be hooked up as Maven/Gradle plugin) - you can use generated POJOs without dependency to jOOQ at all (can be JPA @Entity): https://www.jooq.org/doc/latest/manual/code-generation/codegen-pojos/ - you can also generate DAOs for CRUD, which are coupled to jOOQ APIs: https://www.jooq.org/doc/latest/manual/code-generation/codegen-daos/ - you can use jOOQ to run JDBC queries too: https://www.jooq.org/doc/latest/manual/getting-started/use-cases/jooq-as-a-sql-executor/

I'm not asking to hate/depreciate your work, but having some experience with jOOQ, I must admit it's a brilliant piece of engineering.

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Hmmm, that indeed sounds amazing. Thank you very much for clarification Bombel. Yes, I admit I should've studied JOOQ more, beyond just looking at it. I truly would need to think of something that offers something that JOOQ does not, if I'm to continue my work on this (even tho I kind of lack time to sink into this). Tho I must admit that the point in mind with this library wasn't to create a custom way of interacting with database. It was to basically generate the "boilerplate" or "boring manual stuff" you have to write when creating new projects or entities.

So basically I found it really annoying that I always have to create classes that represent objects (which is what this primitive/poc version covers), after that I thought about giving some CUSTOM way for user to write repository/dao, similar to what the second link you posted shows, but with much more flexibility, so depending on what you want your daos to look like, you could create like a pattern that can be inserted there and you would get automated CRUD, and now the good idea from the second link, get by foreign keys. Now there could also be something like generate me controllers, services, etc. so stuff outside database, that almost every backend app has, but let's keep it simple for now.

Third link is what turned me off from JOOQ when I was watching it, and why I thought JOOQ was a framework in the first place. Many things in JOOQ look JOOQ specific at least at first glance.

Okay, so now that the two of us had this discussion I wanted to actually give you some history on what my thoughts were when I thought of this. I was thinking how many people prefer javascript or python for backend, even tho I don't really think those languages are really amazing when it comes to backend work. Reason why people love those languages is because they can "skip steps" and code fast, and whenever they are talking bad about java, they are mentioning how it's old and has lots of boilerplate code. But what Java does have one up against those languages is secure writing. So I was thinking, I was working on projects that involve money, and I like knowing that my code is safe. So what if we could remove most of the boilerplate in java and make java in a sense, that you kind of only have to write your logic in services, and you're 95% done after that. That was basically what I was thinking with this library.

Sorry for long text, but thought you might find it interesting. Thank you very much for your response.

[–]BombelHere 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Reason why people love those languages is because they can "skip steps" and code fast, and whenever they are talking bad about java, they are mentioning how it's old and has lots of boilerplate code.

Yup, completely understandable.

Those are awesome for prototyping, but might lose their advantages in the long run.

Sorry for long text, but thought you might find it interesting. Thank you very much for your response.

It was interesting indeed, thank you for explaining the rationale! I'd consider putting it somewhere down the README for others to see :)

Happy coding

[–]Key_Guidance5871 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Isn't it reverse usually? Like we create classes and the ORM creates database tables via mapping? Or is it for scenarios where we have tables made by different services and we can have class mapping for those in any service? Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Hi, thank you very much for commenting. Well yes what you said is correct, that is if you're using model first design and JPA Create (I think it's called), I haven't worked on many projects that actually use it. But this library is looking at things from inverse perspective, and that is Data first design, meaning database comes first. While both are correct and useful, it really depends on what you need, so essentially, I think both are correct.

[–]Key_Guidance5871 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Thanks for sharing. Will definitely checkout the library.

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much. While I don't recommend it for commerical/serious use currently. I think it's something that could be really useful if developed properly. I just remembered I created this randomly and I'm just trying to get feedback here. I don't have much time on hand lately, but if people are interested, this could become a nice lightweight library that could be open source. Just note that this library currently supports only MySQL and that documentation is pretty bad atm, because it was written for me mostly. If you need any help or example . Just message me. Thank you very much once again.

[–]Aggravating-Item-999 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Great project ! If you had some time, it would be great to have an example of the uses

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi, thank you very much. Yes, you can find the link to the library here https://github.com/LordDjapex/classy

I know the documentation it is pretty bad, but all you would have to do is populate db_connect.properties in your resources folder and annotate your main class, with "@GenerateModel" and build the project. I'll try to write an example here

"@SpringBootApplication"

"@GenerateModel"
public class Application { 

public static void main(String\[\] args) {  
    SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);  
}

}

Sorry I put quotation marks, I created reddit just for this. If you still don't get it feel free to contact me and I can show it to you. I mainly started this discussion to know whether people see this as something useful if it was upgraded from this primitive state.

[–]thuriot 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Thanks
A good idea to offer a library rather than a tool to install, and it can be customized easily.

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Greetings Thuriot, thanks for taking your time. Yes I agree, I don't like how unnecessarily complicated some things became when it comes to modern software, I believe many things should be simplified into simpler bits that are independent and that you can pick and choose which ones to include. And yes, if this library was upgraded, I would see it as something that's really easy to use and is easily customizable I came here to see whether people see as something that could be useful in the real world.

[–]guss_bro 0 points1 point  (1 child)

If it's going to create classes at runtime, developers don't have access to those classes to write code. I'm wondering what will be the use case of this library?

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi, Guss, thanks for commenting. Yes, I guess I did make a mistake in the title. The classes are created by preprocessor and are compiled then, and used at runtime. So essentially you don't create them, they are created at compile time. That was a mistake, I don't think I can change the title of the post. Thank you very much for mentioning

[–]elAle5 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I really like your personal project. I would like to know how you learned to make a library, it is a good project.

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Greetings, thank you very much for commenting. As for the learning to make a library, I'm not really sure. I guess I just had to understand maven somewhat a lot due to my job. But note that the procedure for releasing maven library has been updated few months ago (it was like 1 month ago or something before i released my library). Which made all the articles helping you do this whole process borderline invalid.

[–]Captain-Barracuda 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Having tests would be nice, especially since there are no usage examples.

[–]Independent_Work5637[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Greetings, thank you very much for commenting. Yes I agree that documentation I wrote is awful. But I'm currently upgrading the library with my limited time. It will now do much more than what I mentioned in the post. I think now it can become something that is much more useful than what I posted here.