Java & XML Data Binding

Chapter 9. Quick

At this point, you probably are getting a little tired of seeing data binding package after data binding package scrolled across the screen. That’s good if you are; it means that you really have a handle on what data binding is. It also should reflect the ease with which you can switch between different data binding conceptual models (switching the code is a bit tougher, mind you). With an hour of free time, some Javadoc, and the examples in the preceding chapters, you should be able to use any of the covered projects in your own programming tasks.

With all that said, then, you are probably wondering why there is yet another chapter on a data binding framework. The answer is simple: Quick is entirely different from what you have seen so far. While Quick is free for use and released as open source, it is based on entirely different concepts. While it allows conversion between Java and XML, it is not a data binding framework, at least in the sense of the JAXB definition of the term. You’ll learn exactly why this is so in this chapter and also see when it is worthwhile to deviate from the data binding standard and use a package like Quick.

Process Flow

I’ll spend a lot of time in this section, as the concepts that underlie Quick are fundamentally different from those that underlie JAXB and the data binding frameworks we have looked at so far. One striking difference is that comparisons between JAXB and Quick easily become meaningless, as the processes involved are very ...