.Net ORM with the fastest learning curve?

Question

A little briefing first; I've been a Delphi person for years, and been away from C# for two years. The last thing I've done in C# was a mid scale DB app with my own custom DAL. Ie, I had coded my own functions to retrieve data as list, functions to append data and so on. Now I am offered a small to mid scale project using C# WinForms and SQL Server, and there's a deadline which is about 2 or 3 weeks. Note that I forgot LINQ syntax and lots of things.

Now, which ORM would be easiest and fastest to learn? I can cope with not using business abstraction layer if need be, to gain time that is. I need something that'll ease manual labour. Thanks in advance.

Learning curves for ORMs are about the same (they are all quirky and have different features, and learning about ORMs in general takes the majority of the time). I'm not sure this is the question you should really be asking. — Michael Maddox, Oct 07 '10 at 14:08

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 19 '10 at 09:23

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For quick-to-implement etc, I'd look at LINQ-to-SQL; the jury is still out on who considers it to be full ORM, but tbh I don't care; it lets me map my data quickly, simply, conveniently and safely, with decent IDE/language support. The LINQ you generally need is pretty minimal... from, where, select, etc. And setting it up is just a case of telling the designer about the tables/columns vs clases/properties.

answered Sep 19 '10 at 09:23

Marc Gravell

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@Dragan, please be aware that Microsoft is recommending people use Entity Framework instead of LinqToSql. – Michael Maddox Oct 07 '10 at 14:09
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@Michael and when they bring EF to the same level of features and ease as L2S has enjoyed for several years, I'm sure people will consider switching. – Marc Gravell Oct 07 '10 at 17:09
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Thanks for writing "The Inconvenient Truth" about EF and L2S – Jader Dias Oct 18 '10 at 16:06

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 19 '10 at 09:43

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If I were you I would go for Entity framework. It's pretty simple,easy to implement, efficient and successful ORM tool. You can use LINQ as well in the entity framework while retrieving the data.

answered Sep 19 '10 at 09:43

A_Var

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score 2 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:32

As a recent ex-Delphi developer I've been amazed with using MyGeneration to generate basic DAL/BLL classes from an existing database, via custom templates. Takes a lot of the drudgery out of the task.

I've also seen some high praise for Business Logic Toolkit for .NET. Its clean and simple architecture and small learning curve makes it very attractive. Not really ORM, but will get you up and running quickly.

If you search for the terms C#/ORM here, you will find lots of lively and interesting debates!

Choosing Database and ORM for a .NET project Some suggestions on which .NET ORM to look at learning https://stackoverflow.com/questions/132676/which-orm-for-net-would-you-recommend https://stackoverflow.com/questions/146087/best-performing-orm-for-net

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 19 '10 at 09:45

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If you don't mind a commercial product, Lightspeed is almost too good to be true. I've used it for about 6 months now and it has helped me in every way possible, from designing the model using a graphical tool, to migrations when upgrading, updating the database with a single click, good unit testing, easy custom extending, validation, etc. At least try out the free version!

answered Sep 19 '10 at 09:45

ciscoheat

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Thanks but I'd need something free as in beer or free as in speech in order to save cost. – Dragan Sep 19 '10 at 09:47

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 18 '10 at 16:04

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I have a project on .NET and MySQL. I've learned Devart LinqConnect in three weeks to complete it. All of LINQ functionality, wide support of MySQL, high quality support - like this product.

answered Oct 18 '10 at 16:04

JackD

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.Net ORM with the fastest learning curve?

5 Answers5