Hi David,
this question is most definitely on topic :-)
So, lets see, what would Core Data give you:
- Scalability, fast incremental loads and saves for big data sets.
I don’t think you’ll need this. Loading and saving 500 items each time
will be fast enough.
- A data model modeler.
That’s actually more valuable then it may seem on first glance. I
often look at my Core Data models when thinking about algorithms and
want to recap how the object graph looks.
- Automatic and semi-automatic version migration.
Depends on the lifecycle of your application. When needed, it’ll save
you tons of time.
- Object graph consistency management.
A big one. Core Data automatically updates inverse relationships as
needed. A lot of work to do manually, and always a source of subtle
bugs.
- Automatic undo support.
Big
- Disadvantage: Core Data does not support ordered relationships. That
is, it uses sets instead of arrays. If you need an order, you have to
manage this yourself. Not hard, but sometimes an annoyance (the reason
for this "shortcoming" are hard technical problems).
That’s it out of my head. I’m sure I forgot something.
The learning effort? Hard to say. Core Data is well documented and
works (almost always) as advertised. So it depends on how well you
learn new abstractions.
One unrelated advice: by all means use garbage collection. It makes
object graph management (and a lot of other things) so much easier, no
matter whether you use Core Data or not.
Good luck!
Kai
On 4.11.2009, at 05:22, David Hirsch wrote:
So, I'm hearing folks sing the praises of CoreData, which I have not
yet learned. It seems like a long uphill climb, but if life will be
spectacular afterwards, I'll do it. I am a semi-casual programmer;
I've just finished a couple of small programs that do not use
CoreData, and I can see the advantage in gaining open/save and undo/
redo for free, but I'm concerned about the work I'll have to put in
to learn it. I've read a bunch of the CoreData intro documentation,
but it doesn't give a feel for how difficult it will be to learn,
nor how big the advantages are if I do.
Here's the next project I'm going to work on, for which I'm
considering CoreData:
A simulated annealing code for class scheduling. The CoreData part
would lie in managing all the lists involved: classes, rooms,
instructors, preferences, conflict cost weights, etc. I estimate
that I will have about 500 items spread over about 10 arrays. I
would not expect to have a complex object graph (if that's the right
term) - just a lot of items in lists, items that need to be managed,
displayed, saved, loaded, etc. I could use NSArrays for all these,
which I currently understand.
Does this sound like it's worth learning CoreData for?
Thanks,
Dave
S.A.: I hope this is on topic; I think it is.
Those recent projects I mentioned:
http://almandine.geol.wwu.edu/~dave/research/code/ModeMaker/
http://almandine.geol.wwu.edu/~dave/research/code/ModeQuiz/
============================
Dave Hirsch
Associate Professor
Department of Geology
Western Washington University
persistent email: dhir...@mac.com
http://www.davehirsch.com
voice: (360) 389-3583
aim: dhir...@mac.com
vCard: http://almandine.geol.wwu.edu/~dave/personal/DaveHirsch.vcf
============================
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