Object relational mapping: where are we?

[Eric Savage]

Object relational mapping, for those who don't know, is a modern software concept for tools that automatically copy data across from your objects in code to database tables, or vice versa.

Developing database-dependent applications regularly at our company, I'm a little suprised to see that the hot topic of ORM seems to have died down since 2004/2005. Is there something I don't know? Where are we at the moment with ORM tools?

Our company developed an ORM tool, Habanero, for which we just launched the beta (www.chillisoft.co.za/habanero), and having a look around at the industry and other competing products, it all looks rather scattered at the moment.

Any thoughts?

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[Jesse Houwing]

Hello Eric,

Object relational mapping, for those who don't know, is a modern
software concept for tools that automatically copy data across from
your objects in code to database tables, or vice versa.

Developing database-dependent applications regularly at our company,
I'm a little suprised to see that the hot topic of ORM seems to have
died down since 2004/2005. Is there something I don't know? Where are
we at the moment with ORM tools?

Our company developed an ORM tool, Habanero, for which we just
launched the beta (www.chillisoft.co.za/habanero), and having a look
around at the industry and other competing products, it all looks
rather scattered at the moment.

Any thoughts?

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

I've used Hibernate in my Java days. There's a port to .NET (nHibernate)
which works very well.

 

[Marc Gravell]

I'm a little suprised to see that the hot topic of ORM seems to have died down since 2004/2005

Really? With LINQ on the horizon (and DLINQ in particular) I thought
the exact opposite, at least for .NET work...

Marc

 

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

Object relational mapping, for those who don't know, is a modern
software concept for tools that automatically copy data across from
your objects in code to database tables, or vice versa.

Developing database-dependent applications regularly at our company,
I'm a little suprised to see that the hot topic of ORM seems to have
died down since 2004/2005. Is there something I don't know? Where are
we at the moment with ORM tools?

Our company developed an ORM tool, Habanero, for which we just
launched the beta (www.chillisoft.co.za/habanero), and having a look
around at the industry and other competing products, it all looks
rather scattered at the moment.

Any thoughts?

We don't see a decline in interest, on the contrary: O/R mapping is on
the rise as more and more people understand what it is.

As a matter of fact, the core O/R mapper vendors who are around for
some time now are moving into directions beyond o/r mapping, i.e.
adding features like auditing and authorization into their frameworks,
in general more into 'entity management' than solely o/r mapping.

FB

--
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Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
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[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?=]

Developing database-dependent applications regularly at our company,
I'm a little suprised to see that the hot topic of ORM seems to have
died down since 2004/2005. Is there something I don't know? Where are
we at the moment with ORM tools?

Very widely used.

Our company developed an ORM tool, Habanero, for which we just
launched the beta (www.chillisoft.co.za/habanero), and having a look
around at the industry and other competing products, it all looks
rather scattered at the moment.

I think you will find it difficult to get success in the ORM market.

There are a lot of good products with a long market history out there.

Arne

 

[Eric Savage]

Well, if ORM is a maturing market, it looks like the real challenge for any ORM product is to innovate. There's probably a lot of scope for "preaching to the unconverted" and making the learning curve even simpler. I'd say the key feature of ORM is work-reduction, and any related feature that can cut down the workload in the work place will be a boon.

With our ORM product we've been incorporating support for UI generation, so that where you are mapping a class with some routine fields that need completing, Habanero will generate the grids and forms to edit that data and map it back to the database through the BO layer.

Features like that and the authentication you mentioned could see software development become more of a process of composition rather than coding.

EggHeadCafe - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

 

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

Well, if ORM is a maturing market, it looks like the real challenge
for any ORM product is to innovate.

Even a niche can be a mature market, and I'd call O/R mapping
currently still a niche market, as the market itself is pretty small:
ask 10 random developers if they're using o/r mapping and you're lucky
if you get 1 developer saying 'yes'. That's ok, MS has dumped dataset
oriented crap onto developers for years, and most developers don't
really bother looking outside MS' provided material.

With Linq to Sql I think the market will expand, as more and more
people will be educated on what's available, and this will lead to a
bigger O/R mapper market.

There's probably a lot of scope
for "preaching to the unconverted" and making the learning curve even
simpler. I'd say the key feature of ORM is work-reduction, and any
related feature that can cut down the workload in the work place will
be a boon.

Sure, however don't forget that switching a team's way of working with
data from table oriented thinking to entity oriented thinking is a
pretty big step. Often a manager will say "I dont want to run the
risk", so it will take time before a lot of people will understand that
it indeed cuts down workload.

With our ORM product we've been incorporating support for UI
generation, so that where you are mapping a class with some routine
fields that need completing, Habanero will generate the grids and
forms to edit that data and map it back to the database through the
BO layer.

CRUD screens can be helpful, but an application's dialog, meeting
proper ergonomic guidelines, focus on functionality instead of just
entities needs more meta-data than just what an entity model can
provide.

FB

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
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