Detecting and Reporting Object-Relational Mapping Problems: An Industrial Report

Background: Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) frameworks are regarded as key tools in the software engineer arsenal. However, developers often face ORM problems, and the solution to these problems are not always clear. To mitigate these problems, we created a framework that detects and reports a family of ORM problems. Aims: The aim of this work is to assess how practitioners perceive our framework, the problems, they face, and the eventual points for improvements. Method: We first report an observational study in which we curated 12 ORM-related problems, which are implemented in our framework. We then conducted a developer experience (DX) study with 13 developers (10 well-experienced and 3 students) to assess their experience with our framework to implement six ORM-related tasks. Results: All participants agreed that our framework helped them to finish the programming tasks. The participants perceived that our framework eases the ORM modeling, has precise error messages, and employs ORM best practices. As a shortcoming, however, one participant mentioned that some custom annotations are not very intuitive. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that developers are willing to use frameworks that catch ORM problems, which create opportunities for new research and tools.