Photo credit When text-to-query approaches (specifically, text2cypher) first entered the scene, I was a bit uncertain how it was useful, especially when existing models were hit-or-miss on result accuracy. It would be hard to justify the benefits over a human expert in the domain and query language. However, as technologies have evolved over the last couple of years, I’ve started to see how a text-to-query approach adds flexibility to rigid applications that could previously only answer a set of pre-defined questions with limited parameters.

Photo credit I’ve recently been working on expanding my horizons in different Java frameworks, and Quarkus was on my list to try. Quarkus is a Kubernetes-native Java framework designed to reduce an application’s footprint, ideal for addressing challenges in deploying, running, and maintaining applications in cloud-based environments. It has become a major player in list of frameworks, so naturally, I wanted to try it out! I started by following the first few steps in this blog post, as it outlines how to get a project up and running and the dependency needed for Neo4j.

Photo credit As of the Neo4j Java Driver 5.28.5, the driver now includes a basic object mapping feature. This allows you to map Java objects to Neo4j nodes and relationships without needing to do so manually or deal with raw results. Note: The driver’s new object mapping is not a full-fledged Object Graph Mapping (OGM) solution. For a more comprehensive option, check out the Neo4j OGM library. Code example I put together a brief example of how to use the new object mapping feature in a Maven project.