Why have object oriented databases not been successful (yet)? [closed]

Answer 1

Serialization provided by the most of Language lets you flaten the Object attributes and thus storing easily them into the RDBMS and similarly retrieving objects is not a big issue. The wide and solid foundation still lacks which hinders the use of OODBMS to be implemented.

I currently thinking of doing this as my Master Thesis project to provide a general framework for OODBMS that supports almost all the components which is commonly used in now a day RDBMS thus providing a non-linear structured DBMS. While studying I came across a project called db4o which is an approach (implemented) of using OODBMS for Java and .net only, so this could be another reason of lack of generality for all types of platforms and languages.

Answer 2

I think that's because big guys like Oracle had been investing in relational databases while object oriented movement was getting momentum...may be they will become mainstream if Oracle / Microsoft invest in it in a big way...which seems unlikely because they don't have a strong reason to do so...it will simplify lives of many programmers...but "making programmers lives simpler" is not a very good business goal for them!

Answer 3

If I can amplify Phil's point: the standardization of SQL. OODB's have tried query languages such as OQL but they never seemed to follow a true standard. Also the quality of the query languages were suspect, arguably due to lack of standardization. Standards foster competition, which spawns quality.

Answer 4

Expensive technology decisions are not made by people with technical knowledge. Companies using relational databases employ lots of people who feel threatened by OODBs and therefore will avoid learning about them.

Answer 5

Can we answer more than once? Another reason is that relational DB's have a strong foundation in mathematics: from the definition of a relation, right through to the normal forms, the theory is rock solid. It is true that the relational model does not map well to OO, but IMHO the benefits and stability of that model outweigh the mapping problem.

Answer 6

I think it's because "object databases" are solving a problem that (almost)nobody really has. For simple persistence of object graphs, the serialization built into most OO environments is "good enough". If you want to do sophisticated operations on a subset of your data, then a relational database and SQL are a perfect fit.

Other than some fringe applications (enormous object graphs that can't be kept in memory, but for which the relationships don't simplify down well for RDBMS use), there really isn't any need for these tools.