db4objects (www.db4o.com), creators of the open source object database, today announced availability of db4o Version 5.0 for Java and .NET, introducing "Native Queries," which express database queries in native semantics of the programming language.

This eliminates the need for developers to learn additional non-mainstream APIs such as JDO, OQL, or SODA and initiates a new level of productivity for writing truly object-oriented software applications.

Native Queries (NQ) reflect the current industry trend to construct data access as a native part of the object-oriented application, rather than using string-based, non-native access. Thus they put an end to the 15-year-long debate about which additional query language to use in creating an OO query API. NQs simply use the existing, widely adopted standard -- the programming language itself -- to access the database.

Native Queries are based on Safe Queries as proposed by Prof. William Cook at the 27th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) in May of 2005. The concept of compliance with existing standards eliminates the need for new standards such as ODMG's OQL and Java's JDO1, which have been disbanded and/or failed to see mass adoption. NQs thus remove a major roadblock for mainstream adoption of object-oriented persistence solutions (object databases, object-relational mappers) -- similar to what SQL did for relational databases.

db4o Version 5's Native Queries express database queries in native semantics of the programming language, e.g., in Java, C#, or VB.NET. This makes development significantly more productive than using incumbent string-based APIs (such as SQL, JDO, OQL), because developers have 100% typesafe, 100% refactorable, and 100% object-oriented access to their data layer.

To read more visit www.db4o.com