Paul Wilson's .NET Blog

Ok, since this is about me, I'll chime in and just ask if I am really suppossed to believe that ORM is appropiate for everything. ORM is a level of abstraction. Abstraction is good assuming it does not cause additional problems. ORM is not fruit. I would view ORM as more of a fruit bar. Is buying a fruit bar better for you than growing your own fruit? In a busy lifestyle, the answer is that it depends. Sometimes it makes sense to buy the fruitbar, sometimes it makes sense to buy the fruit. In my case, i took over an application that has a home built orm component. the hborm is VERY slow. Are all orm products as bad as the hborm that I am stuck with? No. Should I use orm everywhere? No.

BTW, I have to live with the hborm just about every day.

Due to the fact that I am currently onsite, my emails only go out about twice a day. As I said (will say) to Craig Shoemaker on the subject, I have added ORM to my list of things to look at, the problem is that there is not much time for the list.

Wally

PS. I hope that Paul doesn't take anything I saw out of context. Paul is a guru, more than I ever will be. He is someone that I have always respected and I will always respect. I have always considered him a friends since the day I meet him about 3 years ago. I will continue to do so. :-) He knows more about ORM (and many other technologies than I ever will). And I just love the google ads ont he right hand side of the post.

Don't assume this was solely about you Wally. Sure you were part of my inspiration, but its been something I've been thinking about for a while due to similar discussions with others.

BTW, I totally agree that O/R Mappers, nor even just business objects for that matter, are NOT the answer for everything. I continue to use DataSets and Stored Procs where appropriate, although my O/R Mapper even makes that easy. To continue the analogy, fruit IS good for you, but it is also just one part of a well-balanced diet. And of course you can get even the fruit that you need from many different sources, whether it be a different kind of fruit, or maybe even fruit juice or a fruit-bar.

And Wally, please quit putting butter on my fruit. :)

I'd maybe suggest he tries vegetables, and argue that they are different to fruit, but they are still tasty and healthy, and he hasn't had a bad experience with them. Once he starts eating vegetables, I'd sneak in some tomatoes and cucumbers as they are actually fruit, but treated as vegetables.

The suggestion that ORM's are like fruit implies that we need them to be healthy. If that were the case, wouldn't we all be dead at this point in our careers from not using them?

It's an interesting technology and technique, yes, but I've not encountered an instance where I need it. Some people will, some poeple won't. It's all good.

You are right Jeff. The analogy does not imply that one must eat fruit -- its simply trying to say that it is typically part of a balanced diet and just because you feel fine and don't like one fruit shouldn't keep you from trying to get even healthier since you might like other fruits.

I don't understand why some people even bothered to switch to .NET in the first place. They probably were quite able to get everything done in regular ASP and VB6 to begin with. So why bother to switch to something just because it can make you more productive and yield code that's far more maintable?

So, does this make dblib like Doritoes?

When I saw fruit for the first time I knew instinctively that it was very healthy. However, my first bite was absolutely disgusting, and made me sick also. These were early days though, and I hadn't read much about fruit, and certainly didn't know there was such a variety. Anyhow - even though my first experience was bad, and I choose a different variety - a species I saw in your orchid, and my second experience was wonderful. I use fruit in almost every meal I prepare now, and it makes the meal more delicious and nourishing for everyone.

I'm currently working on an open source project (with legacy code) that uses the provider model to abstract away data access. There's one table in particular that uses around 10 stored procs to grab records from it and display it in a variety of ways.

I recently added a couple columns to that table, modified 10 stored procs and all the methods that call those stored procs. Luckily we only have one concrete provider, otherwise I'd have to make the corresponding changes in every single one.

This has pretty much convinced me of the efficacy of tools such as yours. Now its a matter of finding one that works well with an open source project.