LINQ To SQL / Entity Framework / NHibernate ORM Top-Down, Objects First
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use . – Soren Kirkegaard In the process of stumbling through LINQ To SQL to see if I would be able to represent a SQL Server database schema I created to provide storage for a hierarchical well-defined XML Schema for a commonly used utility object, I came to the realization that I was indeed doing everything completely backwards ! What I am saying is this: ORM should be done by focusing on the OBJECTS FIRST, not the Database Schema! Unfortunately, most of the tools we have are data-centric, not object-centric. Scott Allen has a post that clearly describes the debacle . To my knowledge, there will not be any plain old CLR objects (POCOs) in Entity Framework. LINQ to SQL doesn’t yet have all the mapping capability to really separate the object model from the underlying database schema – and of course, you can use it with SQL Server only. Now, this situation may imp...