Toplink compared to its competitors and futur of this product in O/R domain

Question

I am sincerely disappointed by the evolution of TopLink whereas I have been in favour of this product for several years at important customers.
1- New version 10.1.3 (10.0.3 included) has been in beta for almost 3 years!
2- patch corrects only the bugs without any evolution on the level of the functionalities, all the new functionalities are in the 10.1.3 which does not manage to leave. By way of comparison of the product as KODO JDO brings in each patch: New features + Notable Exchanges + Bugfixes 3.4.0 - 3.3.4 - 3.3.3 - 3.3.2 - 3.3.1 - 3.3.0 -! I AM JEALOUS OF KOKO CUSTOMERS
You can see KOKO evolution on 2005 at : http://www.solarmetric.com/Software/Documentation/3.4.0/docs/relnotes.html
3- Other editors (KODO+COCOBASE+JBOSS) start to set up beta versions EJB 3.0 with “very very “complete documenatation and product. Whereas Toplink provides only examples (tutorial) over OC4J (10.1.3 preview in beta since 3 years!) . No real toplink (bata vversion) of Documentation or Product. Like KODO 4 @ : http://www.solarmetric.com/Software/beta/4.0.0EA/
+ Real and Rich documentation @ : http://www.solarmetric.com/Software/Documentation/4.0.0EA/docs/
4- 4 10.1.3 preview Toplink brings functionalities JCA, JAXP but not much of things on the level of mapping O/R: updateAll, cacheEviction, returning, java.util.logging. These functionalities already available on the others concurrent product do not make me any more dream !
I hope that it other evolutions (not announced) on Object/Relational scope ?
5-     does Oracle have still wants to really invest in O/R mapping. There is much marketing, much of mediatic show (Eclipse, GlassFish, EJB3 lead) but not much of technical evolutions compared to competitors.
Thank you to product management make a factual answer because I am a real customer, I am really in favour of the product for 5 years. But I am really disappointed when I see new small actors (KODO...) much better doing?

Answer 1

I am sincerely disappointed by the evolution of
TopLink whereas I have been in favour of this product
for several years at important customers. I am sorry to hear about your disappointment. Hopefully I can provide some insight into where we are with TopLink. It is a critical part of our J2EE/EJB infrastructure providing its classic POJO persistence as well as EJB 2.1 CMP/BMP, and now our preview support of EJB 3.0 persistence.
1- New version 10.1.3 (10.0.3 included) has been in
beta for almost 3 years! As an integrated part of the Oracle Application Server we ship in coordination with the overall release. I understand your frustration and we are working hard to ensure we have a high quality 10.1.3 AS release as well as a first rate persistence solution.
2- patch corrects only the bugs without any evolution
on the level of the functionalities, all the new
functionalities are in the 10.1.3 which does not
manage to leave. By way of comparison of the product
as KODO JDO brings in each patch: New features +
Notable Exchanges + Bugfixes 3.4.0 - 3.3.4 - 3.3.3 -
3.3.2 - 3.3.1 - 3.3.0 -! I AM JEALOUS OF KOKO
CUSTOMERS
You can see KOKO evolution on 2005 at :
http://www.solarmetric.com/Software/Documentation/3.4.
0/docs/relnotes.htmlOur patch-sets are just that. Patches to fix issues important to our customers. They are not new feature releases. As an independent product (prior to the Oracle acquisition) we also had many smaller releases but we were also not well integrated with any container. This integration providing better diagnostics, management, and out of the box support requires us to integrate with the container. I believe you will find Kodo will start to feel this as BEA starts to deliver an integrated persistence solution that may compete with TopLink's complete solution.
Note: This does not mean that we are not supporting other containers. We do extensive testing across non-Oracle databases and application servers to ensure that we continue to work well there as well.
3- Other editors (KODO+COCOBASE+JBOSS) start to set
up beta versions EJB 3.0 with “very very “complete
documenatation and product. Whereas Toplink provides
only examples (tutorial) over OC4J (10.1.3 preview in
beta since 3 years!) . No real toplink (bata
vversion) of Documentation or Product. Like KODO 4 @
: http://www.solarmetric.com/Software/beta/4.0.0EA/
+ Real and Rich documentation @ :
http://www.solarmetric.com/Software/Documentation/4.0.
0EA/docs/At the time of our EJB 3.0 preview we had the best support available for both within the container as well as outside the container. This was primarily documented through how-to's. As we move towards our release (post 10.1.3) that implements the complete specification, which is not yet final, we will be delivering more complete and formal documentation.
The feedback I had received on our how-to's has been excellent to date. It does require more updates now with our 10.1.3 release to address additional functionality we will be providing in the EJB 3.0 persistence areas.
4- 4 10.1.3 preview Toplink brings functionalities
JCA, JAXP but not much of things on the level of
mapping O/R: updateAll, cacheEviction, returning,
java.util.logging. These functionalities already
available on the others concurrent product do not
make me any more dream !
I hope that it other evolutions (not announced) on
Object/Relational scope ?If you look at the list of new features in 10.1.3 here you will see that we have also invested heavily in improvements to our core ORM.
updateAll = UpdateAllQuery
cacheEviction = cache invalidation/expiration (time-to-live) as well as cache coordination mode using invalidation
returning= we have a returning policy for use with triggers and stored procs
logging = we have updated our logging infrastructure to use java.util.logging
Many of these and others have been available in our earlier previews as well. We have a dedicated team here focused both on ORM as well as OXM (including JCA). I would estimate that 75% of our efforts have been on enhanced ORM functionality.
>
5- does Oracle have still wants to really invest in
O/R mapping. There is much marketing, much of
mediatic show (Eclipse, GlassFish, EJB3 lead) but not
much of technical evolutions compared to
competitors.I believe with 10.1.3 we raise the bar of ORM persistence solutions. The new ORM functionality and improved mapping editors will provide existing users new features they have been asking for as well as help grow the developer community. Our community edition of TopLink in GlassFish delivers core ORM persistence to those projects where the full licensed product is not required as well as providing these customers a seamless upgrade to the full solution when they wish to.
As this release comes out we will be updating our collateral and I will strive to ensure our continued leadership and investment in ORM functionality is reflected.
>
Thank you to product management make a factual answer
because I am a real customer, I am really in favour
of the product for 5 years. But I am really
disappointed when I see new small actors (KODO...)
much better doing?I hope you find this helpful. I would be more than happy to discuss this further. This does make it clear that we need to be more vocal and clear about our work as well as getting the 10.1.3 release out the door. I appreciate the feedback and will try to address these concerns directly.
Doug Clarke
Principal Product Manager
Oracle TopLink