Replacing a full ORM (JPA/Hibernate) by a lighter solution : Recommended patterns for load/save?

Question

I\'m developing a new Java web application and I\'m exploring new ways (new for me!) to persist the data. I mostly have experience with JPA & Hibernate but, except for simpl

Answer 1

It sounds like the core issue in the question is with the relational model itself. From what's been described a graph database will map the problem domain very neatly. As an alternative, document stores are another way of approaching the problem because, while the impedance is still there, documents in general are simpler to reason about than sets. Of course, any approach is going to have its own quirks to attend to.