API discussion: type hierarchies
Christopher Deckers
I am new to jOOQ, and often have to go for external documentation to
find my way. As an API consumer, I have a hard time understanding what
methods are available, which type to use, the interactions between the
various types involved, etc. One of the reasons is that I have the
feeling the API involves too many classes and interfaces.
My question is: are all these levels of classes and interfaces
hierarchies necessary? Do we need all these marker interfaces? Can't
things be collapsed a little to simplify the design and lower the
barrier to entry?
For reference, I attach a screenshot of the class/interface hierarchy
of a generated table.
Cheers,
-Christopher
Lukas Eder
> My question is: are all these levels of classes and interfaces
> hierarchies necessary? Do we need all these marker interfaces? Can't
> things be collapsed a little to simplify the design and lower the
> barrier to entry?
Thanks for this analysis. I agree that the balance between keeping
things DRY and keeping them simple has gotten a bit odd in the jOOQ
API. I can understand that this is a bit cumbersome for new users
navigating the Javadoc.
I have recently had the same thoughts, and I was wondering if
abstractions, such as org.jooq.Type and org.jooq.NamedQueryPart were
really necessary. I have created a trac ticket for this:
https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/jooq/ticket/1192
After some analysis, I'll post here a list of API artefacts that we
could probably do without.
Do other users share these thoughts? Or does anyone reference a
higher-level API type?
Cheers
Lukas