I don't get it...

11 Comments

• Who're referring to? Steve Eichert blogs on O/R mappers for ages, and here and there new tools with the same idea (attributes, xml mappings etc., no generator) pop up and go.
  
  
  
  However, it's time .NET gets used to these tools. After all, most .NET developers don't know what O/R mapping is (or the difference between ORM and O/R mapping ;) ) and think in DAL, tiers and code generators for stored procedures.
  
  
  
  Btw, why haven't you done an O/R mapper yet? ;) ;)
  

• LOL Frans.... I'm not touching that one. I've got enough code on my plate at the moment without diving into a field with so many players. Besides, I use one that's not out on the market yet by XHEO, and it works very well for the way I think.
  
  
  
  Nah, I'll let everyone else build their own "lightsaber" so to speak, and I'll focus my OOP energies on other things, like the Provider Model.
  

• I am personally waiting for The One to appear, the O/R mapper that makes other projects halt in their tracks and their developers say "nevermind, just use [insert The One O/R Mapper's name here] instead."
  
  Right now there are so many that I don't have time to do the research to decide which to try.
  

• Shannon: so you don't know if 'The One' is already out there or not :) ;)
  
  
  
  Robert: ah that XHeo thingy... heard about it (saw it in a demo version). There aren't that many players though. However it takes a lot of time to build one (a year minimum), so 'everybody' and 'their mom' is overexxagerated ;)
  

• Why build more? Because most suck, that's why.
  

• Frans, if The One is out there, I will hear about it. I wouldn't see posts to 17 different O/R Mappers, I would see 17 different posts talking about The One O/R Mapper.
  

• Does this post officially make me Klaus' mom? :) I wrote my O/R Mapper because I didn't like any of the ones that where out there for .NET. As things move forward I'm sure I'll eventually find one I like (maybe just mine). Anyway you should write an O/R Mapper that uses the provider model...thats the path I'm on. Oh and when is Paul over at Xheo going to release his?
  

• Just look at the history of bug tracking software. Or build tools. Or any other developer tool.
  
  
  
  Developers build developer tools because they understand their needs. And some developer is always saying, "Why should I pay for that when I can build my own! And I will add my favorite feature - the ability to call it from Fortran! Ha ha ha! I'm so much smarter than everyone else that came before!"
  
  
  
  And then one day this developer realizes he has to *support* this code. And he begins to curse it, but it's his, so it's moderate cursing, but cursing none the less. And he holds on until someone makes a *decent* open source tool or a vendor makes a tool that his company already has a relationship with (ie, Microsoft, IBM, Rational, et al), so it's essentially free to him.
  

• I don't know what Paul's been up to lately. Like me, he's kinda been underground, developing or something. I never see him on MSN anymore.
  
  
  
  Darrell - sounds like an ego thing then. The only time I've ever written anything that I would have paid for was when it was extremely out of my reach. Otherwise if it's good and it works, what's the point... if it doesn't have something it needs, by gosh maybe they should talk to the people that wrote it, and they'll add it.
  

• "I'm so much smarter than everyone else that came before!"
  
  
  
  Should I take offense to that? :) I certainly hope that isn't what people think when I write about my tool. If so I may need to re-evaluate the tone of my posts. Most of the time I'm kinda putting a thought out there saying "hey I think this is a good way to do this, do you agree, or am I nuts?". I'm usually nuts and that's why I love this community. Someone like Thomas isn't afraid to tell me that he thinks I'm attacking the problem all wrong.
  

• Oh and it's not an ego thing, for me at l east, it's a learning thing. Whatever I can use to learn, I'll use. If I think I can learn something from trying to write an O/R Mapper then I'll do that. If I think I can learn something about signing assemblies by creating a vs.net addin, then I'll write that. Let's not get into labelling people because of what they decide to do with their time. It's not beneficial for the community, or anybody else for that matter.