Re: storing data in a desktop app

From:

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= <arne@vajhoej.dk>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 11:07:03 -0500

Message-ID:

<4d6a76a1$0$23757$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>

On 27-02-2011 00:12, harryos wrote:

I am plannig to write a task /time tracking app in which a user can
add/edit tasks and later get reports about the tasks completed.I
thought of doing it as a web app with hsqldb to store data.Then ,when
I came to think about it,I wondered why I couldn't do this as a
desktop application.Is it a good idea to use rdbms in a desktop app?I
mean can I make my application in such a way that a user will not have
to do database setup separately.I am intending to give this
application to users who will have no knowledge about database systems
or their setup.Can I hide the db setup/access and everything related
to data storage inside my appliation and thus invisible to the user?Or
do I have to store data as csv?

The big question is whether the data needs to be shared
between users.

If not then use an embedded Java database (HSQLDB, H2,
Derby aka Java DB etc.) in your desktop app. That will
be completely invisible to the user.

And I can not really see any reason not to use a database.
The JDBC API is simple and well documented. So are various
ORM frameworks and API's (like JPA).

If the users need to share data then you need a different
design.

Like one of these:

multiple instances desktop app---(JDBC)---database server

multiple instances desktop app---(SOAP/HTTP)---web service----database
server

where the databaser server is one of MySQL, SQLServer etc..

Arne