[erlang-questions] BossDB - a sharded, caching, pooling, evented ORM for Erlang

[Tim Watson]

Evan,

Despite my dislike of parameterised modules, this is wickedly cool
stuff. I especially like the LINQ thing you've done - that's very nice
indeed. This is not the first time I've seen refreshing syntax made
available by someone providing a custom pre-processor (or in other
examples a modified scanner/parser). It would be nice if the *normal*
tool chain provided the infrastructure for hooking things like epp
replacements (e.g., aleppo) without having to write a complete
compiler around it - hint hint OTP team.... ??

On 20 February 2012 20:48, Evan Miller <emmiller@REDACTED> wrote:
> BossDB is an advanced database ORM that was recently spun off from
> Chicago Boss into its own project. If you hate parameterized modules,
> parse transforms, and dirty compiler hacks, stop reading immediately,
> because BossDB extensively (ab)uses all three in order to make
> database work productive and fun.
>
> GitHub page: https://github.com/evanmiller/boss_db
>
> FEATURES
>
> * Define your data model with parameterized modules. Accessor,
> association, and save methods are automatically generated for you.
> BossRecords, modeled on ActiveRecord, can be sent straight to ErlyDTL
> for rendering (e.g. Person:name() in Erlang, or {{ person.name }} in
> ErlyDTL).
>
> * Validation and save hooks
>
> * Five battle-tested database SQL/NoSQL adapters with test coverage:
> Mnesia, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Tokyo Tyrant.
>
> * Easy to write additional adapters, just 200-300 lines of Erlang code
>
> * Naming conventions similar to Rails (plural table names, -has,
> -belongs_to, ...)
>
> * Language-integrated querying. This goes a bit beyond parse
> transforms and supports Unicode query operators directly inside Erlang
> code -- 18 search operators in all.
>
> * Intelligent, adapter-agnostic connection pooling
>
> * Support for vertical sharding: model associations work across
> independent databases.
>
> * A model event system called BossNews, which can create notifications
> based on custom rules (e.g. "execute this callback when this field
> changes on this record")
>
> * Memcached-based query and record caching. Cache entries are
> automatically invalidation thanks to BossNews. Never write another
> cache-related save hook again!
>
>
> BossDB is certainly not for everybody, but with it you can write very
> concise, readable code when dealing with a database in Erlang. BossDB
> has been the centerpiece of Chicago Boss since 2009; it is a fairly
> mature piece of software and being used in production on a number of
> websites (including, I recently found out, the #1 dating website in
> the Philippines). The best part IMHO is BossNews, which brings model
> event notifications to the server with a simple API -- great for
> creating alerts or real-time notifications.
>
> It should be straightforward to integrate BossDB into existing stacks,
> but note that you need to compile model files with the BossRecord
> compiler. In addition, you will need to use the BossDB compiler chain
> to take advantage of language-integrated queries (which involves an
> unholy workflow of intercepting scanner errors, rewriting the token
> list, running the tokens through a custom pre-processor[1], applying a
> parse transform, and finally sending the transmogrified parse tree off
> to compile:forms).
>
> Future plans mainly involve adapting BossDB to work with other
> databases; there is a half-finished Riak adapter included in the
> project, but there is room for many more. BossDB should be able to
> work with pretty much any SQL or NoSQL database that supports
> querying.
>
> Happy querying, and let me know if you have any questions about the project!
>
> Best regards,
>
> Evan
>
>
>
> 1. Aleppo, an alternative to EPP: https://github.com/evanmiller/aleppo
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