Re: Mapping SQL Result Sets to Browsers

[Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nathan Andelin wrote:
> I guess the point, is that you may need to plan for a lot of flexibility, and change as business rules change.
>   
Agreed.  I'm sort of avoiding this very high-level discussion of 
architectures because I've already been there and done that and I have 
my own opinions, and rather than bollox up the list with my 
pontification I'm enjoying the interplay (hence the "from the bleachers" 
comment).  But hopefully I can help people avoid certain pitfalls I've 
encountered.

Different rules for different object types is important.  The OO answer 
is to have different classes for each, but all of a sudden you end up 
with a complex and fragile object hierarchy.  Not necessarily a bad 
thing, just something that happens and is not always handled well by ORM 
software.

An even trickier issue is when you get different values for different 
users.  One specific example is social security numbers.  In at least 
one system I've seen, a user with high authority gets to see the real 
SSN, while someone with a lower authority sees a special garbled value.  
Technically I suppose this is a presentation layer issue and the object 
could contain both values, but then you have security concerns.  In any 
event, it's something that needs to be considered.

In any case, you're right - once you begin injecting business rules into 
the ORM layer, a large number of issues come into play.  Everything from 
authorization to latency needs to be addressed.

Joe