It's been a while since the last post. I've been through lots of things with college, especially in the middle of these online classes. Yeah, Covid-19 Pandemic is the main reason why 2020 sucks in general.

During the free time between assignments (read: the moment where I procrastinate and being denial towards them assignments), I tried to add a feature to my Discord bot. The feature isn't something big, just an add-on towards the music player I've already made. It goes as simple as saving the current playlist queue in database, and letting user to have their own playlists. User can do CRUD operations with the playlist.

I already started the project with intention to use SQL database instead NoSQL one. It's just my preference or way to keep myself aware and well informed (I guess?) about how SQL works, how to write the syntax, and such. It also went along with my college courses, which talks about database management (in technical aspects), in which we were using SQL database to play with. In this bot, I've started with SQLite database, but you know lah, file-based database isn't well suited for the cloud service, especially when I'm starting to move around stuff (e.g : hosting my bot on another VM).

In college, I studied MySQL. Therefore, I've already familiar with several MySQL syntax. But after that, we switched into using PostgreSQL. Maybe because it's just more robust, but eh, I'd comply with what happened in college. It's obligatory afterall.

Then I reminded that ORM exists. I had to try working with ORM at least. I mean, it's getting pretty tiring on writing SQL syntax everytime. So I explored and found Sequelize.

Sequelize Experience

Sequelize is the first ORM I tried, and all I have to say that I hate it with passion. As I'm developing with Node.js and Typescript, using Sequelize had been a big obstacle since the beginning. I'll just start with the most important thing when getting started with new libraries.

Documentation : It sucks!

When I first got here, I didn't know which part I should read. Literally there are 4 options of documentations there. I don't know, even until now, on which version I was using. But being a new player I was, of course I'd assume that I was using the latest version. But this slight of confuse-inducing lack-of-information starting page already gave me bad feeling.

Reading through the documentation and following their tutorials wasn't too bad. It's just like any other getting started tutorials, with showing code snippets that does something. I prefer tutorials that actually explains what each code blocks does though. So this wasn't such a big problem.

But the most annoying thing from the docs is the lack of parameter explanations on the API. I mean, just look at this.

I can handle working with "string" parameters, but what the heck with that "object" type? There isn't any pointer to what the data structure which the object accepts. There isn't any Typescript interfaces or such. This really encourages the user to do trial-and-error just to know which parameters supported. But screw that! How can I know what attributes needed for the options, what values it accepts, and what each attributes does to the behavior? At least make it more verbose lah. You're introducing more confusion towards new user.

At first I wasn't that frustrated because I was pretty confident Typescript can help with them sweet inference. But man, this was one of the major drawback and my turnback point from using Sequelize

Typescript : Wack

They already stated that "Typescript won't be very useful out of the box", I already had my red flag. My developer experience was very bad. Setting up a model for use requires too much codes. And after all those attempts, I couldn't manage to make a slick type hinting for a model. Let alone working with other model. Tutorials that goes around the internet really have different approach, which confused me even more.

Other things, like setting up relations between models, querying, migrating, were also pretty annoying. I didn't want to dive myself even deeper to this. I had enough. I need to seek for new library.

Salvation : TypeORM

It all started with me delivering rant in my class group chat, then my friend PMed me.

I was like... "what is typeorm". Then we began exchanging information, discussing about the lack of Sequelize as we both used it, have agreement that Sequelize's docs sucks, and me asking why TypeORM.

And so I tried it. I installed TypeORM with hope that "things can go a least better lah".

When I first got into the landing page, I was instantly hooked since...

"Can be used with TypeScript". I was simply pogging that time. And so I explored more and more.

I'll give a quick summary on why I've fallen in love with this ORM.

TypeScript baby!
I can get type hinting from the models I've made.
Creating relations have never been this easy
Did I say Typescript? I'll say it again. TYPESCRIPT BABY

I don't want to dive too much about each sections because this post is directed towards "public shaming on Sequelize" (also to show off how incompetent I am in using Sequelize). But after trying it and actually implemented the feature I spoke earlier with not too much setups, I can say that I'll continue using TypeORM as the time being for my bots.

I was introduced towards Prisma.js, which is another ORM, but haven't got the time to try it out. Maybe in another project eh.

But all in all, working with Typescript project really makes you depend on the type hinting. I can say that it develops bad habit in just using the type hinting, with less and less reading the docs, but it can't be helped when the docs already bad, right? So, for personal preference, working with libraries with Typescript support is my top priority. But well, in the end, Typescript will still be a bad experience without proper code documentation.

I guess that's it. Up to wandering around the internet for good libraries for good stuffs.

The Sequelize Experience